If the Registered Nurse on your unit told you that they had prepared a Rocephin injection, but now has an emergency to attend to and asked you to administer the dose, how would you respond?

"I am all for being a team player, and would gently suggest to the RN that they complete the task at hand, while I help with the emergency that has come up. I would never administer an injection that I did not prepare. Although the right answer would be to say no to the RN, I can always do so in a respectful manner."

One of the first rules of medication administration is that you should not administer any medication that you did not prepare yourself. Unfortunately, many new or inexperienced nurses are sometimes left feeling that if someone in a supervisory position requests this, they should comply. The interviewer wants to know that you are willing to protect the patient, yourself, and do what is right, even if it means declining a supervisor's request for you to perform a job.

"I understand that emergencies arise, but I learned early in nursing school to never administer any medication that I did not prepare myself. If the RN asked me to administer an injection that they had prepared, I would tell them that I can't use the prepared medication. I would offer to either draw up a new injection myself and give it, or to assist with the other emergency so that they could administer the injection and then tend to the emergency afterward."