hrising

Thank you all for responding. The situation was an event station and the patient was an alert oriented walk-in complaining of dizziness as the result of a fall days earlier. If I had gone beyond what was specifically in the protocol to test, the extra time might have convinced the person that it was worth going to the hospital to get checked instead of waiting until the morning or not going to the doctor (I really felt getting checked out by a doctor should really happen soon). The extra information might also have helped define the problem better, I thought. It sounds like what everyone is saying is that I should pay utmost attention to not wasting time getting the person to treatment, but that beyond that, if I don't give advice I'm unqualified to give, I can collect whatever non-invasive assessment information I feel I need, given the situation.

I have a question for you more experienced people: Does exceeding your scope of practice include collecting diagnostic information or only interventions? That is, if I know more questions and tests I can use to try to figure out what is going on with a patient, can I ask them and use them, as long as I don't intervene or make a judgement that is outside of my level? The question is specifically related to neurological examination, and part of my intent was that I wanted the person to treat the whole thing more seriously and get checked out at the hospital.