Legal Aspects of Nursing

Laws and regulations regarding nursing practice, became necessary by the early 1900s; nursing had developed and matured to the point where minimum standards for entry to the profession were needed. The first laws were the nurse registration acts; in 1903, the first nurse registration act was made law in North Carolina which stated that anyone paying a fee to be listed in the state register could practice nursing. In 1938, New York State passed the first mandatory nurse practice act which was a law establishing two levels of nursing, licensed registered nurse and licensed practical nurse; only professionals licensed under the act could practice nursing. In 1970, The American Nurses' Association amended the 1955 wording of its model definition of nursing to eliminate the prohibition on nursing diagnosis. In 1979, further amendments encompassed the broad scope of nursing in today's practice settings (Ford, 1985).

In 1987, the Office of Connecticut's Attorney General was asked for an opinion as to whether nurse practitioners, acting according to protoco

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ought to trial. Procedural law determines the form or process that regulated legal rights that are violated. Laws may originate from English common lows or written civil codes. Criminal law concerns violations of criminal statutes or laws. Contract law concerns agreements between two parties. Tort law is an area that nurses are most familiar; it involves negligence and medical malpractice. A tort is a wrongful act committed which produces harm, unintentional or intentional; malpractice is a specific type of negligence where standards of care are not met. Nurse practice acts provide standards for nursing; violations of nurse practice acts may even precipitate criminal charges (Aiken & Catalano, 1994). Nurses can protect themselves with the documentation, reporting, and recording of daily nursing practice. Proper treatment of a patient requires the orderly management of nursing and medical records. The nursing record is a written legal account of a patient's history of treatment it minimizes misunderstandings and errors and provides protection against legal claims for damages and misconduct. A nurse who is not able to provide reliable evidence of actions, risks incrimination by the court on grounds of neglect and negligen
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Approximate Word count = 1527
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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