Nurses rely on personal knowledge and their professional skills to provide ethical care (Creasia & Friberg, 2011). In everyday practice, nurses must balance the needs of their patients against those of the organization, society and themselves. They strive to deliver the highest level of care for patients, but adjusting for limited organizational and personal resources often requires difficult decisions. This paper explores the following scenario suggested by Maville and Huerta: “You are a nurse providing home care to a mother, and you suspect child abuse after observing the mother’s reaction to her child” (as cited by Arizona State University, 2014). When faced with a moral dilemma, a competent nurse incorporates ethical, bioethical and legal considerations. In the proposed story, incorporating the nursing ethics of advocacy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and collaboration will guide the nurse towards an appropriate and legal course of action.
Primary Ethical Principle: Advocacy
Advocacy is a fundamental responsibility in nursing because patients are inherently vulnerable (Creasia & Friberg, 2011). The scenario presented is challenging because, although the nurse suspects child abuse, there is a lack of explicit evidence. Reporting suspected child abuse is a legal obligation for nurses, but the result may have devastating effects for the family. To prevent inaccurate conclusions, a professional nurse should question the mother and child separately and attempt to uncover the
As the nursing profession progresses throughout the years, its nature becomes more complex in meeting the professional standards and codes of ethics that are required by all nurses. The American Nurses Association has a specific code of ethics that each nurse should follow and adopt as their own beliefs. The public and the patients should be the priority when providing care in the healthcare setting. The knowledge and education that nurses’ gain is valuable and allows them to encourage health, avoid illness, restore health, and aid in coping for those who are all ill. (LeMone, pp.192) Given that the code of ethics is put into place, there are many registered nurses who violate these codes in various situations. The following will discuss
As The role of the neonatal intensive care nurse in decision-making: Advocacy, involvement in ethical decisions and communication defines an ethical dilemma, “An ethical dilemma exists when some evidence indicates that an act is morally right and some evidence indicates that the same act is morally wrong, but the evidence on both sides is inconclusive… Thus, an ethical dilemma is not between the good aspects and bad aspects of a situation or between what can be done and what one wishes could be done, but among two or more morally right, but inconsistent, alternatives” (International Journal of Nursing Practice, 109). West Park Hospital states on their tree of ethics that compassion and respect, commitment, advocacy, competency, accountability/ responsibility, professional growth, knowledge, collaboration, and integrity are the roots and branches of a healthy nurse-patient relationship. Not only do nurses have to deal with everyday ethics, but they are also given the responsibility of making life-and-death decisions for patients who don’t have the ability to advocate for themselves. Within the domain of nursing, ethical decisions of all types occur within the job, but the level of education and responsibility that you have acquired determines many of the ethical decisions that one is required to make on a daily basis. Over the years, technological advances have changed the ethical decisions that occur within the job and the way that we handle those decisions. Technology has changed our world in many ways, especially within the medical field- some for the better and some for the worse, and this is very noticeable within a nurse’s daily life. Nurses have a lot of responsibility when it comes to making ethical decisions, but they are not the only ones that are involved in those decisions when it comes to vulnerable
Nurses are facing many legal or ethical dilemmas in their career. Nurses should combine knowledge of ethical and legal aspects of health care and professional values into nursing practice. It is very essential to know what kind of dilemmas nurses may face during their profession and how they have been dealt with in the past.
Nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas on a daily basis, each situation being unique and requiring the nurse to set aside their own values and beliefs in order to properly care for their patients. Situations requiring nurses to make an ethical decision are diverse and dynamic; the values set out by the College of Nurses of Ontario code of ethics remains the same. Therefore, all decision based on these vales regardless of the setting and circumstances ensure consistent solutions. The scenario involves a woman who was admitted to the NICU due to complications during her sixth month of pregnancy. The patient indicated that no extraordinary measures should be made to save her baby; she became further detached when the baby developed a bleed
Butts and Rich (1-26) point out that effective nursing requires both broad knowledge and a set of well developed abilities and skills. The required tasks, are many and varied and in order to do them properly, care must be taken to respect each patient's rights and sensitivities. This is why, according to the authors, nursing care must be guided by a code of ethics. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview and discussion of the "Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements" developed by the American Association of Nurses (ANA 1-2).
Myrtle Aydelotte once said, “Nursing encompasses an art, a humanistic orientation, a feeling for the value of the individual, and an intuitive sense of ethics, and the appropriateness of action taken.” In Pediatrics, nurses are faced with many ethical challenges that reflect back to their own personal beliefs and values, in congruent with being able to provide the best quality care both ethically and legally for children without autonomy. When providing care for these patients who do not have autonomy, the nurse’s priority is to advocate and support the child and the families’ needs on a daily basis. The purpose of this ethical paper is to project the dilemma and ethical issues that nurses often encounter involving children, including those who are unable to make decisions for themselves.
Nurses are constantly challenged by changes which occur in their practice environment and are under the influence of internal or external factors. Due to the increased complexity of the health system, nowadays nurses are faced with ethical and legal decisions and often come across dilemmas regarding patient care. From this perspective a good question to be raised would be whether or not nurses have the necessary background, knowledge and skills to make appropriate legal and ethical decisions. Even though most nursing programs cover the ethical and moral issues in health care, it is questionable if new nurses have the depth of knowledge and understanding of these issues and apply them in their practice
The role of ethics in organizational behavior is the underlying factor to the success and longevity of any organization. A set of rules and guidelines focusing on promoting safety, trust, and responsible practice within the workplace must be established internally. Organizations develop code of ethics that center upon the promotion of good. Ethics are vital in developing trusting relationships between employees and administration within.
Ethical issues in nursing will always be an ongoing learning process. Nurses are taught in nursing school what should be done and how. Scenarios are given on tests with one right answer. However, there are situations that nurses may encounter that may have multiple answers and it is hard to choose one. “Ethical directives are not always clearly evident and people sometimes disagree about what is right and wrong” (Butts & Rich, 2016). When an ethical decision is made by a nurse, there must be a logical justification and not just emotions.
Each of the seven primary values encompassed within the code of ethics were involved in this case include, providing safe, compassionate, competent and ethical care, promoting health and well-being, promoting and respecting informed decision-making, preserving dignity, maintaining privacy and confidentiality, promoting justice and being accountable (Canadian Nurses Association, 2008). I am going to thoroughly examine providing safe, compassionate, competent and ethical care, as well as preserving dignity. The code of ethics states under providing safe compassionate, competent and ethical care that nurses’ ethical responsibilities are to follow their practice standards, participate in compassionate care exhibited through actions, behaviours and body language, build trustworthy relationships, be able to fully place oneself in the individuals shoes to fully comprehend their situations, admit to mistakes, and prevent and minimize all forms of harm and violence (Canadian Nurses Association, 2008). This ethical quandary displays how this ethical value was not implemented, the health care aids did not place themselves in their shoes and try to understand their thoughts and feelings or how abandoned and meaningless they felt when they were not even acknowledged. No one
The American Nurses Association 's (ANA) is dedicated to patient safety and nursing quality comes in the form of advocacy. The ANA is able to encourage legislation on important issues such as safe patient handling and patients ' rights by creating initiatives that raise awareness both among the public and among politicians (www.nursingworld.org). Advocacy is responding to the call to be an active voice and demonstrating positive partnerships. Ida Jean Orlando’s Theory of Deliberative Nursing Process is based on key concepts and dimensions. The key concepts include: patient’s behavior, need for help, improvement, nurse’s reactions, perception, thought, feeling, nurse’s activity, automatic nursing process, and deliberative nursing process. Orlando’s nursing theory focuses on the reciprocity relationship between a nurse and her patient (Alligood, 2010). Orlando conceptualized the nurse’s unique function as “finding out and meeting the patient’s immediate needs for help” (Orlando, 1987). In this paper, I will share how I was able to meet the immediate needs of a patient by advocating on his behalf and partnering with the other disciplines within the facility.
This paper explores patient advocacy in nursing practice and the conflicts that arise while promoting patient well-being and respect of autonomy. There is often a conflict of interest between the responsibility to act as the clients advocate and the rights of the nurse to practice in a manner that protects the interests of the nurse, ethical dilemmas, and adhering to healthcare facility protocols. Research by Davoodvand, Abbaszadeh, and Ahmadi (2016) states “even when nurses have effectively performed their role, complications such as fear, anger, frustration, hopelessness, and a sense of separation from their peers are experienced”. Patient advocacy is an important role in nursing practice but ethical challenges and facility guidelines often
Nurses face daily ethical challenges in the provision of quality care. To retain nurses, targeted ethics-related interventions that address caring for an increasingly complex patient population are needed. for Example, a nurse must serve must provide equal patient-centered care regardless of economic statuses, If a nurse is assigned to care for a homeless person, the nurse must provide the same care and offer resources that were given to a client who is not homeless. knowing that homeless people are 10 times less likely have health insurance. The nurse must serve as patient's advocate in providing resources and also provide nursing care that causes no harm or discrimination to the patient in regards to the ethical guidelines. when nurses act
The ethical dilemma is a situation by which it’s difficult to determine whether a situation is can be handled without disappointing both sides. Therefore, an ethical dilemma exists when the right thing to do is clear or when members of the healthcare team cannot agree on the right thing to do. Ethical dilemmas require negotiation of different points of view (potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall 2011pg 78).
As healthcare workers, it is important to have an understanding of the legal and ethics behind nursing. Having a legal understanding is important as it sets the boundaries to what healthcare professionals can and cannot perform under certain circumstances. Legal is an important part of nursing, however, ethics is just as important as it varies from person to person. Even though ethics is not setting boundaries, it enables for a better understanding how and why ethical conflict issues arise. In this scenario, the legal requirements and option will be discussed in relation to consent. Ethical decision will be discussed in relation to the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human rights and applying the Kerridge, Lowe, and Stewart (2013) model to resolve an ethical problem.