Leading and Managing in Nursing 5th Edition by Patricia S. Yoder-Wise – Test Bank

Complete Test Bank With Answers

Sample Questions Posted Below

Chapter 05: Legal and Ethical Issues

Test Bank

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. The manager in the coronary care unit believes that the most important ethical considerations in performance evaluations are that they include the employee’s good qualities and that they give positive direction for professional growth. This belief is an example of:

ANS: D

Nonmaleficence refers to “doing no harm.” By focusing only on good qualities, the manager seeks to do no harm to the employee.

REF:Page 90TOP:AONE competency: Professionalism

2. A staff nurse in the area that you manage has excelled in the delivery of client education. You are considering implementing a new job description that would broaden her opportunity to teach client and orient new staff members to the value of client education. The ethical principle that you are most directly reinforcing is:

ANS: C

Paternalism involves making decisions for others about what is best and, in this instance, what is best for the nurse and her colleagues.

REF:Page 90TOP:AONE competency: Professionalism

3. A client refuses a simple procedure that you believe is in the client’s best interest. The two ethical principles that are directly in conflict in such a situation are:

ANS: C

Autonomy refers to the freedom to make a choice (e.g., refuse a procedure), and beneficence to doing good (performing a procedure that will benefit the patient).

REF:Pages 89, 90TOP:AONE competency: Professionalism

4. An applicant in a wheelchair is applying for the position of receptionist in an outpatient clinic. The nurse manager understands that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 requires that employers:

ANS: A

The purposes of the ADA are to eliminate discrimination against persons with disabilities and to provide consistent, enforceable standards to address discrimination in the workplace.

REF:Page 85TOP:AONE competency: Business Skills

5. A staff nurse who was fired for reporting client abuse to the appropriate state agency files a whistleblower lawsuit against the former employer. Reasons that the court would use in upholding a valid whistleblower suit claiming retaliation include that the nurse:

ANS: A

An employer is unable to fire an employee who, in good faith, reports what is believed to be a violation of a law, rule, or state or federal law.

REF:Pages 87, 88

TOP:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

6. In keeping with standards of  The Joint Commission (TJC), the nurse manager organizes an orientation for new staff members. As part of the orientation, the nurse manager reviews the employee handbook. Employers may be bound to statements in the employee handbook:

ANS: C

The handbook is an implied contract and frames the employment contract.

REF:Page 71

TOP:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

7. To reduce the incidence of falls in a skilled nursing unit, the nurse manager contacts the risk manager. Risk management is a process that attempts to identify potential hazards and:

ANS: B

Risk management involves taking proactive steps to identify and eliminate risks and liability.

REF:Page 83

TOP:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

8. One means of ensuring that nurses floated to other patient care areas in healthcare organizations are qualified to work in those areas is:

ANS: B

Nurses should be floated to units as similar as possible to their own to decrease the potential for liability. Negotiating cross-training, a proactive approach to temporary staffing problems, reduces the potential for liability.

REF:Page 78

TOP:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

9. A colleague asks you to give her your password access so that she can view her partner’s healthcare record. This request violates the patient’s right to:

ANS: A

Privacy refers to the right to protection against unreasonable and unwarranted interference with the patient’s solitude, which extends, in the medical context, to protection against public disclosure of private facts about the patient to the public.

REF:Pages 82, 83

TOP:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

10. On your nursing unit, you employ LPNs, RNs, and advanced practice nurses. You will need to be familiar with at least:

ANS: D

In all states, you will need to be familiar with at least one nursing practice act. In some states, there may be two nursing practice acts if RNs and LPNs/LVNs come under different licensing boards.

REF:Page 70

TOP:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

11. A nurse on your inpatient psychiatric unit is found to have made sexually explicit remarks toward a patient with a previous history of sexual abuse. The patient sues, claiming malpractice. Which of the following conditions would likely not apply in this situation?

ANS: A

By virtue of employment, the nurse owes a duty of care to the patient; this care has been breached by a nurse, who would be expected to know that this behavior violates usual standards of care. If further distress can be directly linked to the remarks, then causation is established. Because of the physical nature of the injury, it may not be possible to establish injury in the suit.

REF:Pages 71-73

TOP:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

12. As a charge nurse, you counsel your RN staff member that he has satisfied his duty of care by notifying a child’s physician of his concerns about deterioration in the child’s status at 0330 hours. The physician does not come in. The child dies at 0630 hours. As the charge nurse, you could be held liable for:

ANS: A

Professional negligence can be asserted when there is failure to do what a reasonable and prudent nurse would do in the same situation. In this situation, the charge nurse might have advocated further for the patient in light of the evident seriousness of the child’s condition.

REF:Page 71

TOP:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

13. The parents of a toddler who dies after being brought to the ER launch a lawsuit, claiming that the failure of nurses to pursue concerns related to their son’s deteriorating condition contributed to his death. The senior nurse executive is named in the suit:

ANS: B

Known as vicarious liability, the doctrine of respondeat superior makes employers accountable for the negligence of their employees, using the rationale that the employee could not have been in a position to have caused the wrongdoing unless hired by the employer.

REF: Pages 73, 74 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment

14. During a staff shortage, you hire an RN from a temporary agency. The RN administers a wrong IV medication that results in cardiac arrest and a difficult recovery for the patient. Liability in this situation:

ANS: D

Apparent agency may apply here because your liability and that of your institution could be established if it can be shown that the patient believes that the RN was an employee of yours and of your institution.

REF: Page 77 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment

15. You volunteer at a free community clinic. A 13-year-old girl claims to have been diagnosed with SLE and presents with chlamydia. The team leader at the clinic advises that:

ANS: C

All states have a legal age for consent; generally, this age is 18. However, emancipated minors, minors seeking treatment for substance abuse, and minors seeking treatment for communicable diseases can provide their own consent.

REF: Pages 79, 80 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment

16. Three gravely ill patients are candidates for the only available bed in the ICU. As the supervisor, you assign the bed to the patient with the best chance of recovery. This decision reflects which of the following ethical principles?

ANS: A

Beneficence refers to doing what’s good for the patient; in this situation, doing what’s good means providing care to the patient with the best likelihood of recovery.

REF: Pages 89, 90 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment

17. Which ethical principle is primarily involved in informed consent?

ANS: B

Autonomy refers to the right to choose freely, which is inherent in informed consent.

REF: Pages 89, 90 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment

18. The principle that requires nurses to uphold a professional code of ethics, to practice within the code of ethics, and to remain competent is which of the following?

ANS: C

Fidelity refers to promise keeping or upholding one’s promise to practice as a reasonable and prudent nurse would do and in an ethically competent manner.

REF:Pages 89-91TOP:AONE competency: Professionalism

19. Mr. M. complains to you that one of your staff asked him details about his sexual relationships and financial affairs. He says that these questions were probing and unnecessary to his care, but he felt that if he refused to answer, the nurse would be angry with him and would not provide him with good care. Mr. M.’s statements reflect concern with:

ANS: A

Privacy protection includes protection against unwarranted intrusion on the patient’s affairs.

REF: Pages 82, 83 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment

20. To satisfy duty of care to a patient, a nurse manager is legally responsible for all except:

ANS: D

Legally, the nurse manager is accountable to nursing practice standards, standards for nurse administrators, and hospital policies and procedures.

REF: Pages 71, 72 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment

21. In a telehealth organization, a nurse who is licensed in New York and Pennsylvania provides teaching to a patient who resides in Pennsylvania. The patient charges that the teaching failed to provide significant information about a potential side effect, which led to delay in seeking treatment and untoward harm. Under which state nurse practice act and standards would this situation be considered?

ANS: B

Under the law, the state in which the patient resides and not the state where the nurse holds his or her license is the state nurse practice act that is considered.

REF: Page 70 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment

MULTIPLE RESPONSE

1. One of your staff nurses asks for your advice because a patient refuses to sign a consent for surgery. The patient says that he won’t sign because he doesn’t understand the nature of the surgery. You advise that (select all that apply):

ANS: A, B, D

Consent must be voluntary and not coerced; the patient must understand what he is signing, must have legal capacity, and must understand the consequences of refusal. Witnessing a consent means attesting to the voluntary nature of the patient’s signature.

REF:Page 70

KEY:AONE competency: Knowledge of the Healthcare Environment

2. With regard to nursing practice, nurse managers are held responsible for (select all that apply):

ANS: A, B

Nurses are responsible for knowing and practicing under state law and nurse practice acts. Managers are responsible for monitoring staff practice and ensuring that staff hold current, valid licensure.

REF: Pages 79-81 TOP: AONE competency: Knowledge of Healthcare Environment