Ebola Outbreak: A Case Study

Today many nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals encounter ethical dilemmas on a daily basis. An ethical dilemma can be defined as when there is more than one reasonable solution to a specific scenario. No one solution is more right than the other. In fact, they may both feel wrong, but a decision must be made (Butts & Rich, 2016). In the healthcare setting, nurses should be prepared to think critically and make ethical decisions. There are many factors that contribute to the process of ethical decision making such as ethical perspectives, principles, theories, and guidelines. Ethical decision making is to be rational and systematic. The selected case to be discussed is the case of Jahi McMath,

Healthcare professionals have an ethical obligation to respect patient’s wishes. Consequently, many legal and ethical dilemmas arise in healthcare in response to clinical decisions related to the needs, beliefs, and preferences of patients and families. Other dilemmas result over concerns about the integrity, competence, or actions of other healthcare professionals. Preserving human dignity, relieving suffering, equality, integrity, and accountability are essential nursing values (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen, & Korhonen, 2015). Nurse leaders have an

There has been an acute worry roaming about the United States concerning the Ebola Outbreak. Originally, Ebola had never touched the United States until September of 2014. (4) The disease was originated from and named after a river in the Democratic of Congo. Since discovered, there have been known cases in Africa. There have been many very deadly cases of Ebola - the fatality rate is estimated to from about fifty to ninety percent. (2) To the United States, there had never been any worry about the disease until September twentieth of 2014. A man by the name of Thomas Eric Duncan boarded flight 822 from Liberia to Dallas, Texas. Flight 822 was where it all began. Nobody had any

Nurses have to respect the dignity of patient’s rights. Patients have the right to refuse

Nurses are undoubtedly one of the most trusted professionals worldwide. Patients, family members, and doctors entrust nurses to provide the utmost quality care to sick individuals. Top priorities of all nurses are advocacy for their patients: including advocating for their physical health, holistic welfare, and utmost importantly, their safety. Patient safety will always be the top priority when providing patient care. The nurse’s responsibility during every patient encounter is to ensure that each patient under her care, receives no harm. As a direct result of the previous statement, it is crucial that every nurse knows their rights to refuse unsafe patient assignments, the process to refuse unsafe patient assignments, and the legal or ethical ramifications that could present themselves if proper judgement is not used. By understanding these rules, nurses not only achieve the responsibility of advocating for patient safety but also safeguard their careers and license.

In 2014 the United States was hit with a force far more deadly and dangerous than many threats received. The ebola virus took the world by storm after it was carried to the United States and spread by people who had visited West Africa. This virus was all the more deadly as it often took hours for any symptoms to occur. In this time the Center for Disease Control spent much time and many resources looking for answers to the many questions they had. Under the time constraint and scrutinizing public, they had to determine what ebola was, what it did and its effects on the general public.

Although the nurses did go through a traumatic experience when caring for an Ebola patient who died, they clearly refused work, without offering to work with another patient. From the moment these individuals became nurses, they knew that they would have a duty to care for people enduring illnesses.

The second dilemma I have chosen to address is inappropriate tasking. One example of inappropriate tasking would be to have new nurse placed in a setting where they are unfamiliar for instance in an emergency setting. When a nurse is placed in an unfamiliar setting the consequential ethical theory of patient care may be solely dependent upon the action or the inactions of a nurse in an unfamiliar setting. Another example of inappropriate tasking would be when a nurse becomes over tasked and they start to inappropriately delegate their duties to a medical assistant whose developmental ethics have not yet matured to the level of the delegating nurse. Although in this latest situation the delegating nurse may believe he/she is morally just the principle ethics of it all would not be beneficial to the patient

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

As a nurse I fully understood the medical consequences and knew the risks I was taking, by volunteering to leave my home in the United Kingdom to help treat the sick patients in the nations of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and now Senegal. My primary concern was to help prevent a global health crisis, and now that I have been exposed to the Ebola virus, which has a mortality rate that fluctuates somewhere between 50 - 90% I have been informed, I myself may be a potential victim. As a nurse I follow the guidelines of clinical ethics and I believe in respect for autonomy and within that, patients have a right to seek the desired medical provider of their liking, as well as the desired medical procedures they wish to endure. I would like the committee to approve the use of

The nursing code of ethics has a very standard definition. It is the base on how nurses should guide themselves in conduct by making the right decision regarding ethical issues. According to the National Student Nurses Association “students of nursing have a responsibility to society in learning the academic theory and clinical skills needed to provide nursing care” (2003). In the clinical setting nurses have a lot of responsibilities while caring for an ill patient, they have the obligation to practice their profession with compassion, love, and respect the uniqueness of each patient, as nurses we are not supposed to deny care to a patient because of their economic status, their skin color, race, or the nature of health problems, we are

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.

Both nurses and physicians are provided with a professional “code of ethics”. These codes are meant to provide professional guidance at all times, but most importantly at times of extreme moral dilemma. The physician’s code of ethics lists several steps in helping to guide the physician in acting as the patients advocate; the patient has the right to make their own decision, professional courtesy, continuous healthcare, and the right to receive adequate healthcare despite the inability to pay (Pierce & Randels, 2010). Within the nursing code of ethics this principle of patient advocacy is also emphasized. Other important provisions include: practicing with compassion that respects the inherent dignity of all persons, collaborating with other

It also occurred for over a year. The source of the Ebola outbreak is still unknown since its first outbreak in 1976. There is a risk of Ebola spreading to unaffected countries, but the outbreaks could be contained before they become an epidemic. There has been a checklist put into play to help high-risk countries and hopefully prevent an EVD outbreak. This checklist includes: overall coordination, rapid response, public awareness, community engagement, infection prevention and control, case management and safe burials, epidemiological surveillance, contact tracing, laboratory capacity, and capacity-building for points of entry. The development of diagnostic tools, therapies, and vaccines for these rare but potentially devastating epidemic diseases must be prioritized during the diseases inter-epidemic periods. The most important thing to prevent the future outbreak of the EVD is bridging the gap of development between African countries, and the rest of the world. This is especially true in the aspect of healthcare. When the Ebola outbreak happened in 2014 in Africa, there were only one or two doctors to take care of every 100,000 patients. A lot of health care works also contracted the disease because they were not wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment (The Ebola Virus Disease: Problems, Consequences, Causes, and

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took specific measures when the Ebola outbreak reached the United States. During the crisis, many airlines canceled flights in hopes to prevent the virus from spreading to different countries. Although there is no FDA approved vaccine for the Ebola virus, there are many precautions people can take to avoid extracting the virus. Keeping clean by washing one's hands often and avoiding contact with someone who may have gotten the virus will ensure one's