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Errors in drug administration are inevitable, which only makes vigilance that much more important. For as long as medications have been given, there have been errors in their administration. Irrespective of policies, procedures and risk-management strategies, their incidence continues – ...

Court decisions related to vaccinations are starting to show a pattern.  Within society there is a debate concerning whether children should be vaccinated. This is a hotly contested and highly emotive question for many. There are those who refrain from ...

The inherent conflict between self-determination and the sanctity of life makes the law far from simple.  Euthanasia and assisting another in committing suicide are both highly emotive and contentious issues. Certainly, a clinician confronted with a request by a client ...

The ‘recency of practice’ standard requires you to make sure you are, in fact, practising to keep your registrations current.  Each nurse and midwife has ‘recency of practice’ obligations to ensure that their recent experience entails practising their profession and ...

The law around commenting on employers and workplaces via social media is evolving but it’s a safe bet it will always be a bad idea.  In the last column, we explored some real life examples of nurses/midwives misusing social media ...

Real-world examples can help workers understand when social media posts aren’t such a great idea.  Nurses are using social media in ever-growing numbers. So they need to be aware of behaviour and conduct that could breach their legal, professional and ...

Can a person in a vegetative state get married? And if not, why not?  A recent interesting case involved a woman who was denied the right to marry her fiancé because he was in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) and ...

Case of teen with Hodgkin’s raises question of whether a life is always best served by trying to save it.  Medical treatment, even if life-saving, cannot be forced upon an adult. For underaged children, however, such decisions can be made ...

Even in a seemingly obvious case of negligence, the accuser must provide appropriate evidence in order to win.  Not every act of harm is negligent, just as not every negligent act is harmful. An assessment relies on the context, the ...

A recent abortion case in Scotland raises questions on just how involved midwives are in procedures to which they may object.  Recently a Scottish appellate court upheld the right of two midwives to “conscientiously object” to undertaking employment duties in a ...