Follow workplace procedures, and identify who bears responsibility before offering help outside your authority
For example, China's nursing regulations require immediate notification of a physician when a patient becomes critical, and raising unlawful orders with the issuing physician. Other workers should identify their own mandatory-reporting boundaries. The law also protects voluntary emergency rescuers from civil liability for injuries caused during rescue.
What it takes
Free. Follow policies, medical orders and procedures; do not make decisions outside your authority. Before helping, ask who bears responsibility if something goes wrong. Resisting requests for an exception can be difficult.
What you may gain
China's Nurses Regulations require a nurse discovering a critical condition to notify a physician immediately. Necessary emergency measures may be undertaken first to save a dying patient. Orders violating law, regulations or clinical technical standards must be raised with the physician and, where necessary, the department head. Separately, Civil Code Article 184 exempts a voluntary emergency rescuer from civil liability for harm caused to the rescued person. These are nationwide Chinese rules.
Context & considerations
Follow procedures within your role; emergency rescue has legal protection. Otherwise establish authority and responsibility instead of replacing formal decisions with personal goodwill. The nursing citation is the 2008 original. TODO: verify whether the 2020 revision changed Article 17. The official Physicians Law text on practicing to clinical standards could not be opened and is not cited.
Research & references
State Council of China (2008). Nurses Regulations, Order No. 517, Article 17. http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2008-03/28/content_6169.htm; National People's Congress of China (2020). Civil Code, Article 184. https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/fl/202006/t20200602_463888.shtml