http://caica.org/NEWS%20DEATHS%20MARTIN ... nurse2.htmKristin Anne Schmidt
March 8, 2006
Boot-Camp Nurse Failed Young Victim
OUR OPINION: SUSPENSION NEEDED UNTIL STATE PROBE IS COMPLETED
Anyone who has ever received the tender ministrations of a nurse in a time of distress knows that nurses are vital to the healing process -- and indispensable to the practice of medicine. Unfortunately, nurse Kristin Anne Schmidt, who watched in silence while guards at the Bay County Boot Camp in Panama City ganged up on a 14-year-old boy, appears to have forgotten that her job is to help save lives.
Nurse stands by
Martin Lee Anderson, the victim, died just a few hours after eight grown men punched and kneed him for allegedly failing to perform an exercise routine. A videotape shows Ms. Schmidt standing by a few feet away while guards pummel the unresisting boy. By the time she fetched a supervisor, it was too late. No one will ever know whether a forceful intervention or sharp rebuke by the nurse -- Stop it now! -- could have saved young Anderson's life, but surely it would have been the proper thing to do.
Some experts in ethical behavior have speculated that Ms. Schmidt was under pressure to accommodate her role to the atmosphere of a disciplinary facility. Perhaps, but no such consideration overrides the duty of nurses to respect and nurture life.
The Code of Ethics of the American Nurses Association makes it clear that compassion should be the guiding ideal of the nursing profession. It further states: ``Acquiescing and accepting unsafe or inappropriate practices, even if the individual does not participate in the specific practice, is equivalent to condoning unsafe practice.''
Sadly, Ms. Schmidt is not the first nurse in recent Florida history whose actions, or failure to act, have been called into question in the wake of a death by a juvenile in state custody. Following the June 2003 death of 17-year-old Omar Paisley at a Miami lockup operated by the Department of Juvenile Justice, nurses Gaile Loperfido and Dianne Demeritte were charged with manslaughter and third-degree murder. The trial is pending.
Ethics violation
That situation was significantly different in many ways, but certainly the performance of the nurses in both instances can be deemed inconsistent with the accepted standards of the nursing profession, to say the least. Until the actions of Ms. Schmidt can be clarified, she should not be allowed to stay on the job as if nothing had happened.
Meanwhile, all nurses who work in state institutions where men and women -- young or otherwise -- are disciplined should be reminded of this relevant admonition in the ANA Code of Ethics: ``Nurses should not remain employed in facilities that routinely violate patient rights or require nurses to severely and repeatedly compromise standards of practice and personal morality'' (emphasis added).
