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More than ever, the changing health care environment requires nurses to be accountable for their practice. According to Boni (2001), the accountable nurse takes responsibility and answers for his or her actions. The professional importance of accountability must be reinforced with nurses at all levels of practice, from students and new graduates to seasoned nurses who are changing practice settings or roles. This quality is more than just a belief that "the buck stops here." It's actually the recognition by a professional nurse that he or she is the sole manager of personal practice. The need to hold accountability as a nearly sacred virtue in nursing has been driven home for me many times in my career, most recently in two experiences with students over the past year.
Unfortunately, both students demonstrated aspects of unsafe practice and had to be removed from the clinical setting. I have since been struck by the difference in their reactions to their failure. One student...