SAFE MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION

Safe Medication Administration

Reflective Essay: Safe Medication Administration

This is a reflective essay on the topic safe administration of medication. The safety of administration of medicines depends on the proper administration method and accuracy of dosage. The reason why I chose this topic is the incident I witnessed while I was working in a hospital as a nurse. In my essay, I have incorporated the Gibbs Reflective cycle, which helps in assessing the situation on the basis of the experience (Oxford Brookes University, 2011). To protect the anonymity of the patient, I will use Mrs. A, as an alternate for her name.

Description

Mrs. A was admitted in the cardiac care unit. The women was intubated with a Naso-Gastric tube. The patient was admitted for angina Pectoris. A cardiac nurse was asked to administer extended-release nifedipine, which is a calcium channel blocker. In her haste, the nurse crushed the tablets before administering it. She did not read the label properly which clearly mentioned that do not crush the tablets. The nurse immediately left the room after administration, and after one, hour she found the patient in shock, and he eventually died due to sudden cardiac collapse.

Feelings

As a nursing student, the case caught my interest as I wanted to examine the result behind this sudden death of the patient. As my mentor once told me, the medication administration program is an intricate and multi step process, in which h error might occur at any stage. My mentor asked me to assess the case with him under his guidance. Under this assessment, I learned that medication administration errors are one of the critical concerns in terms of patient's safety (Kim, Bates, 2013, pp.590-598). The administration errors hold around 32% of the total medication errors. The safe administration practice is necessary to control the ...