Ethical issues, or just misinformed?
by Dan Bobinski
As an avid lifelong learner and an advocate of managers thinking like trainers, I naturally tune in to what’s missing in terms of training when people tell me about problems they have at work.
For instance, I recently heard about a nurse starting out at a hospital. The hospital has a computer system through which nurses and doctors order various tests for their patients. In her first week on the job, as this new nurse was learning the computer system, she was told, “When ordering blood from the lab so we can do a transfusion, just click on CMV Negative.”
She asked what that meant, but was told “that’s just what we always do.”
In those short few seconds, this nurse “learned” something that had potential for grave implications.
Reason: Blood without the Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is can be hard to come by. CMV is a relatively harmless virus carried by up to 80 percent of the population, usually in adults. Therefore, kids rarely have it. People with normal immune systems develop antibodies for it, so its effects are not a problem. But doctors don’t like introducing CMV to kids-especially sick kids-or people with weak immune systems, such as cancer patients.
RIPPLE EFFECTS
The first time the new nurse ordered blood she “followed instructions.”
Thankfully, a medical technologist in the lab noticed it was wasn’t being ordered for the oncology floor, neo-natal intensive care, nor the pediatrics floor, so she took a look at the patient’s record. No notes existed and nothing special was written anywhere indicating this patient needed CMV Negative blood.
She looked at the hospital’s current ready-supply of CMV Negative blood - only three units - and decided to call the nurse. Sure enough, the doctor had not ordered CMV Neg blood, the new nurse was simply doing as she was told. With verifications in hand, the lab tech adjusted the order.
That lab tech’s thinking paid off when later that morning a child patient needed blood - and the doctor specifically requested CMV Negative blood.
TRAINING ISSUE:
When a manager (or anyone for that matter) is conducting training, providing inaccurate information can have serious ripple effects. Comments like “we always click on CMV Negative” could happen for any number of reasons. They can be a way of deflecting a question for which the trainer does not know the answer (unethical), or perhaps the manager was taught incorrectly when someone showed her how to order blood (misinformed).
If you train others, first be confident of your material. Make sure what you’re teaching has been validated by another expert. But if you don’t know an answer - be ethical. Say you don’t know, and then go find the answer!
