Ethical Case Study : The New Nurse

As a nurse, I strive to maintain an ethical practice. Providing care without judgment, instructing the patient appropriately and to their level of understanding, maintaining a safe environment under my care, and doing no physical, mental, or emotional harm. I also have a duty to my employer to provide excellent care and uphold the policies of the organization. While these things are all good intentions, at times there are ethical situation that present for the nurse. At times the policies of the organization or providing outstanding care seem to be contrary to

Poor record-keeping can have serious implications for the patient and the nurse. Professionally, colleagues rely on the information recorded on a patient to maintain continuity of care (Wood 2003). The patient’s progress could rapidly deteriorate due to poor record-keeping, holding the nurse responsible and accountable for the patient’s decline in condition. Poor record-keeping in this instance could include a nurse not documenting a nursing intervention such as administration of a medication. If this is not recorded another nurse could easily believe the patient did not get the medication and administer it again, causing overdose and possibly have severe implications for the patient depending on the medication. Another example could be if the nurse noticed the patient’s condition worsening but did not document it. Consequently the patient may get significantly worse before it is detected by the next nurse on duty. In these instances the nurse responsible for the poor record-keeping will most likely be brought to the Fitness to Practice Inquiry and as a result may lose his/her registration as a practicing nurse. If the nurse has made a grievous error a patient or family member could take civil action.

moral positions of key individuals involved and identify value conflicts, if any, determine who should make the decision. Identify range of actions with anticipated

Nurses play many roles in the healthcare field, can have many duties to fulfill under their licensure. It is important for a nurse of any degree, or licenses to know all of the duties that can be performed under their scope of practice. Olin (2012) states, “Scopes of practice are the same for every nurse at a basic level and very different by specialty.” Therefore, it is important to understand the scope of practice, that the nurse is licensed for. A nurse has many roles under the scope of practice that the nurse is licensed under. There are times when a nurse is asked to perform a task that isn’t under the nurse’s scope of practice and guidelines, and it is very important not to fulfill the task at hand if it

Nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas every day. There are a lot of different beliefs surrounding ethics and the code of ethics. Ethics and ethical issues have always existed, that is why they have put in place the code of ethics. The American Nursing Association (ANA) Code of Ethics isa guideline to help nurses determine which course of action to pursue. Every minute many ethical decisions are made, some may not comply with guidelines and others the patient’s will never understand. In this case study the nurse is put in an uncomfortable position and has two find a way to comply with the family, the patient, and the doctor’s orders.How can she report to the doctor the information the daughter has told her? How she approached

The ANMC (2010, pp.6) state on the topic of confidentiality, that nurses must insure the information obtained in a professional setting remain private and that information received is not used by nurses to give them an advantage or power in any way. Education in the matter is one solution to guarantee the boundaries and to keep a professional position. These breaches can be classified as boundary crossings, boundary violations or sexual misconduct and can lead to violations of a nurse’s professional responsibility causing consequences to occur.

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

According to the literature justice refers to the obligation nurses must have with everyone to be fair, it is an approach to ethical decisions making based on objective rules and fidelity means that the nurse’s obligation is to be faithful to commitments made to self and others or loyalty to agreements accepted. This sense of responsibility to fidelity means to be trustful and keep a promise. Therefore, when taking care of a patient who is in a lot of pain and ask the nurse for his pain medication then the nurse promises to the patient that he or she will be back with his ordered medication within five minutes, then as a nurse duty he or she has to come back to the patient’s room within those five minutes, because he or she made the promise. It is an ethical principle that relates to fair treatment in light to what is owed to the patient. The concept individuals obligation is to be faithful to promises made

`Ethics' is defined as ."..the basis on which people...decide that certain actions are right or wrong and whether one ought to do something or has a right to something"(Rumbold, 1986). In relating `ethics' to nursing care, "Nursing decisions affect people... nurses have the power to good or harm to their patients" (Bandman et al, 2002). In this essay, the author will also identify the most important ethical principles and concepts of Evan's case, will outline the different stages of one's approach to ethical decision-making by utilising the "DECIDE Model for Ethical Decision-Making" founded by Thompson et al (2000) and will make a decision on the best course of action to take as a nurse in this

Practicing beneficence involves a moral obligation to act for the benefit of others by helping them to further their important and legitimate interests, often by preventing or removing possible harms. Nursing is a healthcare profession where beneficence is often displayed. During the entire patient interaction, nurses must advocate for their patients. For instance, if a patient doesn’t have an order for pain medication or their current order isn’t sufficient, nurses must advocate for the patient by contacting the physician. By doing this, nurses are working for the good of the patient that may unable to verbally express their pain and perspective.

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.

Typical diagnoses on the unit include congestive heart failure (CHF), myocardial infarction (MI), arrhythmia, myocarditis, coronary artery disease along with medical history of diabetes and hypertension. The RNs who are working on this floor are often occupied with administering medications and providing basic nursing care to their assigned patients. In order to complete their nursing tasks efficiently, some of them develop their own “nursing shortcuts” in their practice to save time for other duties (Beaulieu & Freeman, 2009). However, these “nursing shortcuts” raise the question of whether or not nurses are practicing according to policies, guidelines, standards and literature that inform nursing practice. Not practicing in accordance with these sources can pose as a potential threat to patient safety (Halm & Gleaves, 2009; Odom- Forren, 2011). An example of such a nursing activity, as witnessed by the authors, is a nurse who obtained blood samples from a patient’s peripheral intravenous catheter on a cardiac inpatient floor.

Ethics is an essential aspect of health care practice and those working in the nursing profession are often subject to frequent ethical dilemmas. It is essential for all nurses to be aware of the importance of ethics in health care and to practice within the ethico-legal parameters that govern the profession. However, while this is relatively easy in theory, ethics is not a black and white subject and often one’s culture, upbringing, attitudes and beliefs can influence what one views as ethical and this can therefore influence practice. This report will discuss the importance of ethics in nursing practice. The definition of ethics will firstly be presented followed

Thank you for sharing your point of views. Be honest, I feel scary and stressful after I found out so many rules are applied to constraint nurses' misconduct. It seems that it is very easy to fall into one or two of these rules if a nurse does not adhere to the standard of practice and use the best judgment. I understand that these rules are inevitably required by the Board of Nursing and New York State of Department of Health in order to ensure safe practicing and protect the public. According to New York State Education Department (NYSED) on the detail definitions of professional misconduct (2017), the examples of these misconducts are: improper delegation, abusive actions, failure to obtain consent, breach of confidentiality, failure to

This incident was very unusual and awkward for me. Was the nurse making an ethical decision or not? As per (Kozier et al., 2014, p. 86), the textbook states that, “making ethical decisions is the responsible ethical reasoning is