Professional Standards & Ethics Flashcards
7 cards from real CMC practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Professional Standards & Ethics flashcards as text
A cardiac nurse witnesses a physician make a medication error but the physician asks the nurse not to report it. The nurse's ethical and legal obligation is to:
Answer: File an incident report and report to the appropriate supervisor
Nurses have a professional and legal duty to report errors regardless of who made them to ensure patient safety.
Which ethical principle is MOST directly violated when a cardiac patient is not told the risks of a coronary angiogram before signing the consent form?
Answer: Autonomy
Informed consent requires full disclosure of risks; withholding this information violates the patient's right to autonomous decision-making.
In the context of cardiac nursing, 'scope of practice' is BEST defined as:
Answer: The range of roles, functions, and responsibilities legally authorized for a nurse's license and credential
Scope of practice is defined by state nurse practice acts and is the legal boundary within which a nurse may practice.
A nurse practicing in a cardiac ICU suspects a patient lacks decision-making capacity. The MOST appropriate next step is:
Answer: Perform a formal capacity evaluation and involve the ethics committee if needed
Capacity must be formally assessed; if lacking, a surrogate decision-maker or ethics consultation guides care decisions.
A pharmaceutical company offers a cardiac nurse a gift card for attending a product promotion dinner. According to professional ethics, the nurse should:
Answer: Decline the gift to avoid a conflict of interest and maintain professional integrity
Professional standards and most institutional policies prohibit accepting gifts from industry to prevent conflicts of interest.
When documenting a cardiac patient's hemodynamic data, the nurse accidentally enters incorrect values and realizes the error after saving. The correct action is:
Answer: Draw a single line through the error, initial it, note the date and time, and add the correct entry
Proper error correction in medical records requires a single line strike-through, initials, date, time, and the correct entry to maintain an accurate, legal record.
The principle of justice in cardiac care ethics most directly relates to:
Answer: Fair and equitable distribution of healthcare resources across patient populations
Justice requires that healthcare resources and treatments be distributed fairly among all patients regardless of socioeconomic or other factors.