ETHICAL AND LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF PRESCRIBING DRUGS
What type of drug should you prescribe based on your patient’s diagnosis? How much of the drug should the patient receive? How often should the drug be administered? When should the drug not be prescribed? Are there individual patient factors that could create complications when taking the drug? Should you be prescribing drugs to this patient? How might different state regulations affect the prescribing of this drug to this patient?
These are some of the questions you might consider when selecting a treatment plan for a patient.
As an advanced practice nurse prescribing drugs, you are held accountable for people’s lives every day. Patients and their families will often place trust in you because of your position. With this trust comes power and responsibility, as well as an ethical and legal obligation to “do no harm.” It is important that you are aware of current professional, legal, and ethical standards for advanced practice nurses with prescriptive authority. Additionally, it is important to ensure that the treatment plans and administration/prescribing of drugs is in accordance with the regulations of the state in which you practice. Understanding how these regulations may affect the prescribing of certain drugs in different states may have a significant impact on your patient’s treatment plan. In this Assignment, you explore ethical and legal implications of scenarios and consider how to appropriately respond.
RESOURCES
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
To Prepare:
- Review the Resources for this module and consider the legal and ethical implications of prescribing prescription drugs, disclosure, and nondisclosure.
- Review the scenario assigned by your Instructor for this Assignment.
- Search specific laws and standards for prescribing prescription drugs and for addressing medication errors for your state or region, and reflect on these as you review the scenario assigned by your Instructor.
- Consider the ethical and legal implications of the scenario for all stakeholders involved, such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and patient’s family.
- Think about two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your ethically and legally responsible decision-making in this scenario, including whether you would disclose any medication errors.
Week 1 Assignment 2 Case Study
MA is an 85-year-old female living in a long-term care facility. She has significant cognitive decline, and her physician has even said that death is near with her other health issues including renal failure and CHF. She has been on blood thinners for years due to a valve replacement 20 years ago. She cries in agony with each fingerpick and can barely tolerate the lab draws if needed to check her INR. Is continual monitoring of the INR needed given her terminal status?
BY DAY 7 OF WEEK 1
Write a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:
- Explain the ethical and legal implications of the scenario you selected on all stakeholders involved, such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and patient’s family.
- Describe strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario you selected. Be sure to reference laws specific to your state.
- Explain two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your decision making in this scenario, including whether you would disclose your error. Be sure to justify your explanation.
- Explain the process of writing prescriptions, including strategies to minimize medication errors.
Reminder: The College of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The College of Nursing Writing Template with Instructions provided at the Walden Writing Center offers an example of those required elements (available at https://academicguides.
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Solution
Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs
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Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs
Prescribing drugs has numerous ethical and legal implications for medical practitioners and their patients. Ethical considerations include the patient’s autonomy, beneficence, and non-maleficence, while legal implications may include professional negligence, informed consent, and confidentiality issues (Ethics of prescription medication access, innovation, and prescribing, n.d.).
The case
This case is of an 85-year-old female living in a long-term care facility with significant cognitive decline and near death due to renal failure and CHF. She has been on blood thinners for 20 years due to
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