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Article: Patient-controlled analgesia: jury relates patient's death to nursing negligence.(McAllen Hosp. v. Muniz)
- Article from:
- Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
- Article date:
- January 1, 2008
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A morphine patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) was started right after amputation of the patient's left lower leg for his pain at the surgical site and for phantom pain.
Depression of his mental status and hypotension were detected by his nurses early the next morning, promptly reported to the physician and charted in the nursing progress notes.
The physician discontinued the morphine PCA and ordered po Darvocet q 3 hours prn for pain.
Despite some success with the po Darvocet, a pain-management specialist came in three days later and put the patient back on a PCA, this time with Dilaudid at a basal rate of 0.5 mg/hr and a demand dose of .025 mg ...