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When using trial and error towards the nursing practice the nurse is putting the patient at risk for harm by using their own judgement of how a procedure should or should not be performed. Medication errors can also become a problem when this method is practice. When the nurse goes against her better judgement to try a new way the outcome becomes uncertain. Protocols are set in place to protect the nurse as well as the patient. The hospital I work has protocol for the nurses called, “Standards of Care”. This gives the nurse detail instructions on how every procedure should be performed.
These guidelines are set by the hospital when performing procedures. This keeps errors to a minimal if the standards are followed. Past experience practice is used by every nurse. When a nurse is shown a procedure incorrectly or developed the wrong way this becomes a disadvantage. When I was orienting I was told by several nurses, “I know this is the wrong way, but this is how I’ve been doing it from the beginning”. This just wrong for the patient, coworkers, and organization. Another disadvantage to this type of practice is when a nurse may have repeat patients admitted to hospital with the same diagnosis.
Example would be a patient presented with Sickle-Cell Crisis this commonly seen on my floor the nurse will assume their condition is the same from the last visit and may not do a through assessment. . By doing this valuable information from the patient could be missed. Which could cause more harm to the patient. Intuition practice would be the same a mother’s intuition or it can be look at as a emotional reaction. Nurses sometimes find themselves in the position that their gut tells them something is not right.
This could be helpful, but it can also harm the patient. Every situation does not end the same way, a nurse could forget about the nursing process and jump right to the conclusion. Another way of looking at this practice is when a nurse does not feel comfortable in her actions and does not call the doctor because of the lack of experience. The doctor may have orders for the patient that does not suit the diagnosis, and the nurse goes ahead and follows the doctors orders instead of trusting her own judgement. Intuition could stop the nurse from doing harm to