Hello everyone,

Are you allowing teachers accompanying nursing students in training in your facilities to perform an independent double check (IDC) of what the student has prepared and if yes could you please elaborate on your rational? Or are you considering the couple student-teacher as one person and require a third healthcare professional to perform the IDC?

Our IDC policy and procedure does not take this into account and in light of two recent events involving medications prepared by a student and verified only by the teacher, we started looking at what was done elsewhere and if there were any literature. Our local nursing school providing most of the students to our university hospital would consider the student and teacher as one person (the one preparing and administering) and requires a third professional to verify. The Nova Scotia Health Authority Medication Management Policy and Procedure (available online – from Canada at least) does the same, but many other P&P do not mention this situation. We consulted ISMP Canada and their idea is to look at the IDC process itself and the differences after introducing a student and teacher, and not who is performing the preparation and verification. From this analysis, we are tempted to conclude that there is no need for a third professional verification, although our main concern is that we believe it is harder for the teacher to maintain independence from the student.

Thanks a lot.

Serge Maltais, M.Sc.
Medication Safety Project Manager
Pharmacy department
CIUSSSE-CHUS
Sherbrooke, QC, Canada