Politics and Nursing

Jeanne Blum, RN, is a nurse on a LDRP unit. Recently, the policy and procedures manual for Jeanne’s unit included the premature rupturing of membranes of a laboring patient as a practice acceptable for nurses to perform. Jeanne and some of her coworkers shared their concern over lunch about this new responsibility.They felt uncomfortable with the possibility of cord prolapse and other potential medical complications resulting from this practice. Jeanne gathered data from her state and many others states and noted that her hospital was not in compliance with her professional organization practice standards. Jeanne shared this information with her coworkers. She volunteered to contact the state board of nursing on their behalf to request a declaratory statement on the nurse’s role in the initiation of premature rupturing of uterine membranes. Her state board’s clinical practice committee reviewed her request for a declaratory statement and gathered information from other states. A formal declaratory statement was drafted by the board and made it available on its Web site. A letter from the board was sent to Jeanne’s institution, informing it of the declaratory statement, which stated that the task nurses were requested to perform was beyond their scope of practice based on the Nurse Practice Act.