You are a nurse working in a rehabilitation unit of a largemedical center. As you enter a patient’s room to conduct afollow-up assessment, you find the patient engrossed in aconversation with a woman in a lab coat who introduces herself as agraduate nursing student from the university affiliated with themedical center. The student says that she is conducting researchfor her master’s thesis. You know that no arrangements have beenmade for this patient to be a participant in a research study toevaluate nursing care, and you had no knowledge that this studentmight collect data in this setting. You reviewed the patient’srecords at the beginning of your shift and know that the patientdid not sign a consent form to participate in any study. Thestudent states that she was only interviewing the patient, notproviding any treatment, and was not putting the patient at anyrisk. Therefore, she does not think that she needed to obtainconsent.
1. Critique the graduate student’s actions in light of how youunderstand the protection of patient rights in research.
2. Critique the actions of the faculty members in charge of thisstudent in light of your understanding of patient rights inresearch.
3. Based on your understanding of patient rights, describe yourreaction to the graduate student’s response.
