Ethically Speaking Part II....

[Firechic]

You and your partner are dispatched on a call for a diabetic patient who would like her glucose level checked. You arrive on scene and enter a large building which is opened for you by the security guard. The guard takes you to the patient and states that he will be back in a minute. You cannot leave the area now because you are locked in that wing of the building. Your partner is the lead on this call and asks you to get the glucometer. You notice that there are no test strips in the kit, something that your partner said she had checked out at the beginning of the shift. You tell your partner this information out of earshot of the elderly patient and a bit annoyed with her offered, "I'll go find the guard so I can get the strips in the ambulance." She tells you no, forget it and proceeds to take a BP on the patient and asks if she has her own glucometer. The patient says that she doesn't have it with her right now, but plans on going home after we leave and that her cousin is picking her up in 5 minutes. The patient has no S&S of hypo/hyperglycemia and responds appropriately throughout the contact. She informs the patient that she seems to have no signs of diabetic problems at the moment, that we cannot check her glucose level at this time, and her BP looks good.
After driving back to the station in silence, you turn to your partner and irately state, "Well, I guess I'll have to check out the ambulance now." She responds with, "Yeah, whatever...."
Later, you happen to see her run chart of the call and note that she had changed the patient complaint to ' BP check' rather than 'BGL check'.
What would you do??

 

[soon2bemt]

Be very very po-ed and report her lazy A$$.

 

[Jon]

That isn't acceptable. You need to be honest with your patients AND YOURSELF. If you run out of test strips and have more in the truck, then you go back out to the truck and get some...

The person should be reported - Why? Because they falisified documentation. Worst case... document that you COULDN'T check her sugar and document WHY you felt she wasn't hypo/hyperglycemic.

 

[Firechic]

Believe me, this is a hypothetical situation - I'm not describing a workday!

Okay, you NEED to report the lead (your partner) to your supervisor. But, the next day, still peeved about what happened although a little calmer....you start to think.
If I report what happened to the supervisor, then I will probably get into just as much trouble because I didn't find the guard to unlock the doors and go get the strips out of the MICU. The patient turned out to be fine, she went home, checked her levels, everything OK.

Should you still do it?

What if you found out that whatever punishment that the lead would receive, YOU would get the same. However, if you don't report it, then no one would ever find out about it. No one knows that you saw the falsified report. Would you still do it?

This is an attempt to have some fun with ethical decisions - hopefully, not a lame attempt!!

 

[joemt]

#1... could you sleep with the thought of "keeping the secret"? I couldn't..
#2... is there ANY potential that this could come back to bite either of you in the backside?

Regardless, if this were me I probably would have called the guard anyway to let me back out and then in... gone and got the strips, and then worked from there... my partner being mad at me is NOTHING compared to patient care.

I would discuss this incident with my boss at the first opportunity.