Catholic Social Teaching Of Human Dignity In Nursing

As a registered nurse practicing in the state of California I am responsible for practicing within my states legal regulations and nursing scope of practice. My concern for the welfare of the sick and injured allows me to practice ethical provisions of nursing. These are required if I am to carry out competent and effective nursing care. Nursing encompasses the prevention of illness, the alleviation of suffering, and the protection, promotion, and restoration of health in the care of individuals. Therefore, as health care professionals we must be familiar with the different philosophical forces, ethical principles, theories and values that influence nursing. At the same time, we must be respectful to our patient’s

Nurses actively preserve the dignity of people through practiced kindness and respect for the vulnerability and powerlessness of people in their care… This vulnerability creates a power differential in the relationship between nurses and persons in their care that must be recognised and managed.7 A diagram representing a continuum of professional behaviour provides a picture of therapeutic versus non-therapeutic behaviour in the relationship between the nurse and the persons in their care.8

This essay will discuss and reflect on one of the Principles of Nursing Practice and I will relate this to my practice experience. It will focus on Principle of Nursing Practice A: Dignity, humanity and equality and I will demonstrate knowledge of the Principle of Nursing Practice in my essay and investigate the professional, legal and ethical frameworks that guide nursing practice and discuss and link what I have experienced in practice to my chosen Principle.

There are, however, barriers to maintaining a patient’s dignity. In a survey of over two thousand nurses’, carried out by the RCN (2008), it was found that nurses’ come across several boundaries in relation to maintaining a patient’s dignity. These boundaries were identified as pressures on bed spaces, shortages of staff and a purpose or target centred culture (RCN, 2008). The caring environment can have a huge impact on dignity, it has the ability to maintain a person’s dignity or degrade and devalue them (Gallagher, 2004). Torjuul and Sorlie (2006) acknowledge that overcrowding and mixed-sex accommodation are barriers to maintaining patients’ dignity and privacy. A caring environment that is spacious, clean, with good facilities promotes dignified care (Baillie et al., 2009).

Patient-centered care recognizes that the care that you provide as a nurse should be centered on the patient, respecting the patient’s needs, values and preferences. By using this competency, I was able to create a mutual respect relationship between me and my patients. I believe that when they feel respected, and that you are there for them, to care for their needs, the whole process of providing care for your patient becomes easier and a better experience for the patient, independently of what the reason is for what they are being cared

This essay will consider ethics in nursing, discuss values and morals and how dignity and respect in patient care is influenced; considering the importance of reflection and the implications it has on effective practice from the perspective of a student nurse. The scenario “Call Me Joe” provided by Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2010a) highlights concerning issues and bad practice that are happening in modern day nursing practice, and using the Driscoll and Teh (2001) reflective model: What, Now What and So What, to consider the care that Joe is receiving; considering how the nursing practice affects him directly and the implications of the nature of knowledge in nursing practice. Part of the way in which nursing practice is

An underlining principle that forms all nursing practice is respect for the inherent dignity, worth, unique attributes, and human rights of all individuals. (Jimenez-Lopez, Roales-Nieto, Seco, Preciado, 2016) Nurses are to always treat all patients with dignity. For example, closing doors before you start providing patient care. It’s also essential as a nurse to respect patients regardless of their background, race, culture, value system, or spiritual belief. (Jimenez-Lopez, et al., 2016)

A nurse is given an opportunity to help patients, either if its by helping them through a very serious sickness or just helping a patient get to the bathroom on time, or a time when happiness is overfilling the room and a child is being born. Registered nurses provide a wide variety of patient care services (Mitchell, p.12). A Nurse must always know where to begin and where to stop, as any other career in the health field there is always something that cannot be done by everyone but only the certified person, a nurse must always remain inside her scope of practice to prevent any misunderstandings. A nurse must also follow a code of ethics , the code of ethics of the American Association of Medical Assistants states that a nurse should at all times render service with full respect and dignity of humanity, respect confidential information obtained by a patients file, uphold the honor and high principles the profession and accept its discipline, and last but not least always want to improve her services to better serve the health and well being of the community. (Mitchell, p.65).

The Health Foundation (2014) states that ‘Person-Centred Care show an important way to make the patient feel involved in their own care’. If the patient has control over their own body and mind, then they will have an understanding of what is happening to them. Person-centred care is in place for the patients, staff and families all to get involved in the planning, care and discharge. It involves compassion which is important in a nurse’s role as the patient enters unfamiliar territory. All staff needs to consider the patients respect and dignity is upheld, with closing curtains, covering up the patient and asking for consent to enter the patient’s bed space.

dignity of the patient are essential components of caring. Caring in nursing is there to meet the

Human dignity is respect for an individual regardless of sex, race, or gender. This ethical principle promotes respect for life, freedom and privacy. A nurse can promote dignity by providing patient privacy during nursing care procedures, allowing independence, and upholding the cleanliness of the patient. For the nurse, human dignity does not only apply to patients but also to our peer and colleagues. The nursing student can promote human dignity by being respectful to his or her fellow classmates, faculty, and staff. They can also promote dignity by decreasing prejudice, judgment and competition among students (Shaw & Degazon, 2008).

Ethics and Morals play an important role in the nursing profession; nurses are confronted with choices to make every day, and some of them more challenging than others. Ethics are affirmations between what it can be right or erroneous. For our society ethics is presented as a complex system of principles and beliefs. This system serves as an approach with the purpose of ensuring the protection of each individual within the society. On the other hand, morals are basic standards between what is right or wrong; each individual learns to identify these standards during the early stages of human development (Catalano, 2009). A person with morals is usually somebody who recognizes how to respond to the needs of another individual by giving care and keeping a level of responsibility while giving this care (Catalano, 2009).

“Dignity is a state of physical, emotional and spiritual comfort, with each individual valued for his or her uniqueness and his or her individuality celebrated. Dignity is promoted when individuals are enabled to do the best within their capabilities, exercise control, make choices and feel involved in the decision-making that underpins their care.”

In today’s society, it is easily forgotten how the little things that are done for other people can mean so much to them. Sometimes it’s a simple smile, a wave hello, or lending a listening ear. All these little actions are considered actions that heal. As a nurse, being a healing presence is an art that comes with the job. In the hospital, nurses work with patients from different walks of life. By being present in the moment, this turns a dreadful experience of being in a hospital, to one that is appreciated. Jean Watson stresses the importance of the patient’s environment in caritas process eight: “creating a healing environment at all levels” (Watson, 2008, p. 129). This includes both the physical and non-physical environment, the patients, comfort, safety, privacy, human dignity, and a clean surrounding (p.129). This caritas process stresses that the nurse is the environment for the patient; with the nurse providing little aspects of patient care such as light, art, water cleanliness, privacy, nutrition, beauty, safety, hand washing, comfort measures and others’ routines and rituals, the patients will have a more pleasant experience (p. 129). An analysis of how caritas process eight is incorporated into the nurse and student nurses care in relation to the nurse-patient relationships, patients environment, religious beliefs, safety and upholding the patients dignity.

Within nursing, there is a very delicate balance between a nurse and her patient that must be maintained if the patient is to receive the care that he or she is entitled to receive. The patient must feel comfortable trusting his nurse to hear his needs and respond to them appropriately and in order for this to be the case, the nurse must first provide therapeutic communication effective enough to elicit such a response in her patient. There are both verbal and non-verbal components within the nurse-patient relationship. These components greatly influence how a nurse and patient will relate to each other and, ultimately, greatly influence the care that the patient receives.