Case Scenario

Thus far we have reviewed articles about patient advocacy that identified obstacles, we have reviewed the Patient's Bill of Rights, foundations of medical ethics, and viewed a YouTube video depicting various scenarios of advocating for patients. Now we will review a case scenario.

You are coming on shift in a busy emergency department, you go to the nurse's station to sign in on the computer to check your assignment and to get a quick report; while doing this you over hear a physician discussing advance directives with an elderly couple. The husband is the patient and his wife is sitting at the bedside discussing DNR status with Dr XYZ. You over hear the elderly couple explicitly tell the physician that they want everything done that is possible. The physician soon excuses himself as he is going to write admitting orders and tells them it should not be too long before they get moved to the medical unit. Approximately a half hour later the physician hands you this patients chart and reviews the admitting orders in case there is any questions. You are surprised to see that the physician has written the patient's resuscitation status as DNR. What is your first step?