Nonmaleficence In Nursing

Transitioning from a student nurse to a real life put your big girl pants on, professional nurse is terrifying to say the least. We, as students, go from having our hands held while we bathe a patient, to being told that every single medication pass and procedure on all 5+ of our patients is completely on our own. No thank you, school forever please! Being an independent professional nurse takes a very important characteristic to achieve, and a sense of confidence and leadership within one self.

Being a nurse leader isn’t for every Registered Nurse out there. It takes the right person for this complex job. Most people would probably confuse a nurse manager and a nurse leader, or even consider them the same thing. A nurse leader is not as hands-on

These two are closely related to each other as they also are exactly what defines an ethical nurse. Nonmaleficence literally means to do no harm. This is the first line when it comes to patient’s safety. We as nurses should never put a patient in a situation where they could potentially get hurt. Beneficence, as said by the American Nurses Association (2018) is “at the heart of every day nursing practice.” Beneficence prevents harm, removes harm, and promotes good. (ANA 2018) This is or should be the attitude we carry through our whole shift, on each shift. Sometimes families are faced with difficult decisions, and we as nurses can help them with this by using beneficence. We should be the support system for patient’s families while refraining from our own opinion, preventing harm, and doing

This can end up in a lawsuit, which shoots down a nurse’s self-esteem and confidence. How do we prevent ourselves from these traumatizing incidents? Follow protocol, maintain clear communication, document EVERYTHING you do (because if it wasn’t charted, then it wasn’t done), check on and monitor your patient, delegate correctly, and so on. (American Nurses 2018) Doing your job correctly is what is going to protect you from a law suit. Granted, mistakes happen, they do. Whether you are a brand new nurse or an experienced nurse, mistakes are going to happen because we are human, but we also have standard ways to prevent these mistakes from happening. We just have to focus and be careful with what we do and