Nursing Ethics and Technology Scenario
Scenario:It is 7pm and you are awaiting night shift report. There’s a lot of chatter of this evening as one of the respiratory therapists is having a party. You’re kind of bummed since the nurse giving you report is heading to the party and is noticeably excited that it’s:Thursday night and she’s off until MondayThe end of her shift And she’s heading to a party that’s sure to be a good time.“Don’t worry Emily,” Beth shouts as she’s heading out. “I’ll send you pictures” Nothing worse than 4th of July in a trauma center.The pictures start rolling in. You don’t dare leave your phone in your locker even though it’s policy – you don’t want to miss anything.Ugh – way to pour salt in my wound. The texting stops at around midnight which is OK as you hear over the “box” of an MVA coming in with 3 seriously injured occupants. One died at the scene and one had a traumatic amputation.The medics roll in and begin to fill you in. Your patient is a 28‐year‐old female; she was a passenger in a single vehicle accident that hit an embankment and overturned. The victim has significant facial injuries and a traumatic amputation of her lower leg. As an 8 year veteran of the trauma center you’ve seen a lot but this is especially gruesome. “Jane Doe” is unconscious. Her blood pressure is 70 palpable and she’s tachycardiac at 160 beats/minute. You’re pretty nervous but essentially on your own here because it’s a busy Friday night, your CNA just went on break and the others are getting other victims from the MVA as well. But as you focus on the patient you notice it’s Beth. You quickly text your best friend. “Jane, PLEASE TEXT ME NOW!! Were you with Beth when you left the party?”. When you get no response the feeling of dread is just awful. You go into robot mode and start addressing Beth’s most immediate injuries. Dr. Berg and Dr. Ekochi are busy with other patient’s but you’re confident they’ll head to your trauma bay soon. You think about your paper due next week in your DNP program on traumatic injuries and reluctantly snap a few pictures. Beth is barely recognizable and you think, “when she gets better she’s gonna want to see these!”. It’s a busy night and Beth is whisked to the OR at 3am. The team did a great job stabilizing all the patients. It was easily the hardest shift you’ve ever worked – physically and emotionally. At 7:30 a.m., you drag your tired body home and straight to bed after a long but eventful night.What happens next? Choose an ending to the scenario (SEE BELOW), and construct your paper based on those reflections: 1. You wake up at 3pm and see a few missed phone calls and messages. One was from the local city paper wanting to cover the accident on their webpage. “Did you happen to get any pictures? We can pay you $4000 for a few shots if good quality”. They go on to say your identity would never be revealed, and a few extra dollars can’t hurt anyone, right? OR2. You go on Facebook and talk about the night you had at work. You talk about the horrible accident that “everybody” already knows about and how horrific it was seeing all these traumatic injuries – but “that’s what I became a nurse for, right”. You carefully blur Beth’s face and post a picture of her gruesome leg. That evening your nurse manager calls you and asks you to report to the Compliance Office first thing. You quickly erase the pictures from your cell phone but know the damage is done.Instructions for what to includeChoose an ending and one of the 4 following outcomesChoose an ending to the scenario, and construct your paper based on those reflections. Choose one of the following outcomes: 1. A HIPAA violation occurs, and client data is exposed to the media. 2. A medication error has harmed a client. 3. A technology downtime that impacts patient care occurs, and an error is made.4. A ransomware attack has occurred, and the organization must contemplate paying the ransom or lose access to patient data.
