Here is the current authoritative tool you need as you weigh potential ethical issues and make important decisions for you and your patients. Nurse's Legal Handbook works as your personal legal nurse consultant, with practical direction on how to navigate legal ethics, pitfalls, and preventative steps. This indispensable handbook demonstrates the issues with recent nursing malpractice cases, to help you be protected and informed regarding your legal rights, risks, and responsibilities as a nurse. Get informed on current laws, practice standards, and areas of legal liability - NEW Current laws and trends in litigation that affect nursing - NEW Current legal/ethical controversies, including: the definition of death; the nurse's response to a patient request to stop treatment - NEW Legal guidance on: o How to protect yourself from being sued for nursing negligence o The importance of professional liability insurance o The litigation process, and the four elements needed to prove nursing negligence or malpractice o Signs you are at risk for civil or criminal prosecution o What to do if you are named as a defendant o Testifying as a nurse expert o Nursing documentation as the best courtroom evidence o How testifying experts use medical records in malpractice litigation o The effects of Good Samaritan Laws on nursing o Making ethical decisions; ethical relationships with patients and coworkers o Your employee rights; the meanings of employee contracts; and whistleblowing - NEW How the states' Nurse Practice Acts and the current American Nurse Association (ANA) Scope and Standards of Nursing Practice regulate quality of care - NEW How nursing standards and hospital policies affect court decisions - NEW Ethical issues raised by landmark cases: End of life, quality of life; laws such as the Patient Self-Determination Act; violence against nurses and the ANA's response - Crucial information for advanced practice nurses and nurse practitioners, legal nurse consultants, risk managers, critical care nurses, medical/surgical nurses, nurse attorneys, emergency nurses, long-term care nurses, and nurse educators