Reflection On Wall Of Silence

Wall of Silence Journal One Despite all the medical advancement over the years, medical errors continue to negatively affect patient safety. A medical error is defined as a preventable adverse effect of medical care whether evident or harmful to the patient (Medical Scribe Journal, 2017). Before this course I was aware of how medical errors could easily occur in the medical field. Since the beginning of nursing school, in Foundations, instructors emphasized strongly on safety checks for any medical procedure in the hospital; specially, the seven rights of medication administration. After reading the first two parts of the wall of silence, I was saddened by the number of loved ones that died unnecessarily for many years; and, by all the different …show more content…
As a student nurse, I administer venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis in the hospital numerous of times. As I read the story, I was astonished that the experience nurse did not advocate for her patient and ensure that Claudie was getting the appropriate dosage based on the doctor’s prescription order. The Cause of Claudie death was an error of commission done by the pharmacy. The pharmacy recorded the wrong dose for the patient. The dose given to Claudie was not the dose that the doctor ordered. The medication given was under the therapeutic range to prevent clots from forming into the blood vessels. Inattention was the cause of this medical error. As a patient advocate, the nurse failed to do her medication checks during her visit to Claudie’ home. Claudie’s’ death was preventable, he was educated on bleeding side effects of the medication; however, he was not educated on the signs symptoms that a clot could have formed in his …show more content…
There are now seven rights of medication administration that the home health nurse should have done to prevent the death of Claudie. The seven rights are: right patient, right medication, right reason, right route, right dose, right time, right documentation (Smeulers, Verweij, Maaskant, de Boer, Krediet, Nieveen van Dijkum, Vermeulen, 2015). The nurse failed to check off “right dose” medication right. Quality indicators such as verification by pharmacy and protocol address the right drug, right dose and right reason of the medication administration rights (smeulers et al., 2015). Better communication between the nurse, the patient, the pharmacy and the doctor were necessary to prevent Claudie’s