“Little knowledge is dangerous.”

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My students yesterday were third year nursing learners. It was their first time to have their duty in medical ward. I gave each one of them a client to handle. They were all enthusiastic to work, were so interested to inform me the vital signs and manifestations of their respective clients, were happy to prepare the medications and administer under my supervision, and perform new nursing procedures. A student had a client yesterday who was sick of upper gastrointestinal bleeding, and had an intravenous fluid of plain Normal saline Solution to KVO (keep vein open), and side drip of Dopamine at 10 microdrops/minute. Dopamine premix side drip helps to increase the blood pressure of the client. The first BP reading was 70/50mmHg so I instructed my student to increase the flow rate in increments of 5 mgtts/minute, or reduce in decrements of 5mgtts/minute depending upon the BP reading. A significant other of the client was acting so boastful to my student, staring at all my students from head to foot with one eyebrow raised, and questioned the assigned student why the BP of her mother was unstable. (Precisely that was why the client had Dopamine is because her BP was fluctuating.) The SO (significant other) was acting like the nurse. So what I did was confronted her: “If you don’t want my student to MONITOR your patient, then I will gladly leave you and her alone”, to which the patient refused. (That is the advantage when a student handles a patient- she watches over the patient every hour, unlike the professional nurses who do not monitor the patients’ vital signs because of many clients in the ward). The significant other, I heard from my colleague (who also had the same incident yesterday), is a midwifery student who did not graduate. She wanted to be the personal nurse of the patient. The old woman (patient) is a “no bill balance” patient that means that she is a ‘free’ patient; she won’t pay anything. And the SO acted like she is paying the hospitalization expenses of the client. This significant other is the person who has little knowledge and still thinks she does not need anybody’s help at all.