The medication is a blood thinner, the patient is a competent adult not in delirium, A&OX4. There are 2 ways to see this:

Manager’s and a group of doctor’s POV: you are a nurse and it’s your job and duty to do that. Plus, we know better than him what’s good for him. These people have built their identity around working in healthcare and to them this means I have to stay in the room and make sure the patient takes the medication.

My POV: nursing is not a calling but a job. What my manager and these doctors think is stupid:

  • the patient is a competent adult not in delirium, A&OX4. He’s old enough to know what happens if he doesn’t take the medication because we have told him a number of times already. I’m not his father and I’m not ready to treat a competent adult like a child.

  • I have other patients and I’m not going to waste my time watching a patient silently until he decides to take the medication. I’m charting that I left the medication next to him and told him he needs it and why and that I have other patients to take care of.

  • It is stupid to watch a person while doing nothing when I should be working with my other patients. It’s also invasive as f*ck.

I see it like this: my manager and this group of doctors are not ready to respect a person’s autonomy whereas I’m not ready to ignore this same autonomy, even if it means a negative outcome. Respecting a consenting adult’s autonomy means respecting his bad choices as well. I feel this group of doctors and my manager are not ready to respect any patient’s autonomy.

At this moment, this is a hill I’m willing to die on. AITA?

ETA: I wrote about a group of doctors, because there are other doctors that don’t give me hard time if a patient refuses his medication, they simply chart it and move on. I like working with doctors like this because I feel they don’t judge and respect the patient’s autonomy as well.

  • averyminya@beehaw.org
    2·
    6 months ago

    My partner is a med tech. Unless it states otherwise on their chart/care plan, she always makes sure those meds get taken. It can be uncomfortable or awkward, but depending on the residents level of ability there is no way to determine their safety, whether they remember to take it, etc. Is it unfortunate that we can’t trust their autonomy? Yes, but it’s also necessary. For her case, these are residents who are paying for this service, and while in the moment they are upset that she lingers while they take their meds, it’s the service they pay for.

    Basically, yes. All med techs at her job always deliver then watch the resident take the meds. The only time this isn’t the case is if the residents care plan specifically mentions it’s okay for the resident to take their own {labelled medicine} by leaving it with them.

    Of her 80 residents that amounts to be about 3 people who she is able to just leave the meds for. This is because these are people who are in assisted living for physical problems, not mental decline. It’s not always that these people do or don’t know better, it’s that they may just not be in a place mentally to do it for themselves, even if they have moments or even are mostly lucid.

    I’d say it’s more from the perspective of these people are paying for that service and it’s not so much their own lack of autonomy but your provided care.