Nursing Education Standards - Assignment Example

For instance “The American Nurses Association's (ANA) Code for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (Code for Nurses) explicates the goals, values and ethical precepts that direct the profession of nursing” (American Nursing Association, 2012). The National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission is also there to ensure that various nursing institutions live up to the standard of practice before accreditations are issued out to them. This leaves various nursing education faculties with huge responsibilities of ensuring that standards put in place by accreditation bodies are adhered to without fail.

By maintaining these standards, a large proportion of the responsibility of producing nurses who are in tune with the theories and practices of the profession would be catered for. Sadly though, there often arise instances when these standards are not met. There are specific incidences and practices that constitute a deviation from the standard and some of these are discussed in the following paragraphs with accompanying actions on how the deviations could be remedied. Negligence is one serious incidence that can be interpreted as a deviation from the standard needed to be in place in all nursing educational institutions and by extension, by practice by all nursing students and professionals.

In a broader perspective, negligence may be described as the act of abandoning one’s responsibilities. Resnick (2005) posits that “negligence is a general term meaning deviation from a standard of care.” This means that negligence on the part of officers is a serious form of deviation from standards and constitutes an offence. In a typical scenario in the faculty, authorities are given “the legislative power to initiate, regulate, and enforce the provision of the Nurse Practice Act” (Rosdahl, 2003, p. 42). Consequently, any official under whose watch the provisions of the Nurse Practice Act are ignored has committed an offence of negligence.

Explaining further on, Croke (2003) observes that “the categories of negligence are: failure to follow standards of care, failure to use equipment in a responsible manner, failure to communicate, failure to document, failure to assess and monitor, and failure to act as a patient advocate.” Negligence in itself could be sparked by a number of causes including laziness, wrongful delegation of power, abuse of power and over confidence in discharge of duty. Whatever the cause, the American Nurses Association (2012) note that negligence and all forms of deviation from the standards are unacceptable.

Negligence on the part of officials and nursing students alike can result in devastating consequences. There is no debate on this because nursing care and education are all about human lives and thus acts of negligence could lead to consequences including deaths and permanent damages. Closely related to negligence is the offense of professional misconduct or legal malpractice. At the faculty, there are numerous practices that constitute malpractice and by extension a deviation from the standards.

Quoting from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (2003), Croke (2003) states that malpractice constitutes “improper or unethical conduct or unreasonable lack of skill by a holder of a professional or official position to denote negligent or unskillful performance of duties when professional skills are obligatory.”