Ethical Decision Making Case Analysis Essay

Nurses are faced with ethical issues and dilemmas on a regular basis. Nurses must understand his or her values and morals to be able to deal adequately with the ethical issues he or she is faced with. Some ethical issues nurses are exposed to may be more difficult than others and the ethical decision making process is learned over time.

The nursing profession is a helping profession, not simply a collection of specific skills to complete a required task (Peckham & Meerabeau, 2007). The actions of a Registered Nurse (RN) can not only affect the relationship with a patient, but the general trustworthiness of the nursing profession as a whole (NCNZ,2012). In this essay the writer will analyse a scenario which negatively impacted on a resident, which was witnessed while on clinical placement and discuss the legal, ethical and professional obligations observed by the RN.

Describe the ethical dilemma that the nurse is facing? Please be specific. What makes it an ethical dilemma?

In the clinical field, nurses face many ethical dilemmas. In some circumstances where there are issues in decision making, and there is ethical dilemma, the ethics committee can help to come to an agreement. Ethical committee has members from different educational background, diverse experiences, and distinctive lookouts from the internal and external aspects of health care. They also have common people from the community. When faced with very challenging ethical issues, the members associate together to give suggestions which will support patient’s rights and encourage common decision making. Ethics committee has extensive power to make decisions at the bedside and they also have the power to influence a jury or judge during any issues regarding patient rights.

The health care profession has many positions within the interconnected team that make up the field. Some personnel never place a hand on patients but others including nurses and physicians are always in contact with them. This interconnected world of study and practice places large amounts of stress on all members to maintain professional conduct and to follow management, hospital policy, and national board regulations. The legal and ethical obligations that are to be upheld by healthcare members, especially nursing staff, make for added pressure. This pressure, however, places many members in an uncomfortable position allowing them opportunities to either easily break regulation or uphold their ethical obligations. Uniquely, this position is where many tend to fail.

Engulfed by a cloud of grey, there are many situations that are not unblemished in the profession of nursing. Ethical dilemmas are often the most challenging to handle as they are interlinked with our own personal values and morals, requiring knowledge and attention to many factors (Burkhardt, Nathaniel, & Walton, 2014). Ethical predicaments will cross our paths daily and we need to utilize ethical frameworks, codes and our personal decision making to come to a well-informed conclusion. When we are in the vicinity of an uncertain quandary our human nature is tested, and we thoroughly scrutinise who we are ethically and morally. I am going to work through an ethical decision making model

In the healthcare profession ethical dilemmas/problems are encountered every day by all of the healthcare professionals. As a registered nurse and throughout the years, I have encountered many problems of different magnitude; different situations that can affect physically and emotionally,

After amassing and reviewing all information collected through the assessment of moral integrity and the ethical decision framework, the nurse should have a better understanding of the ethical dilemma and how it affect each person and the organization. It will better allow her to show moral courage to overcome fears, and resist pressure and act differently to make “right” decision. Making the “right” decision however requires the nurse to demonstrate moral leadership and courage. The nurse may have to overcome adversities that might test her resolve in ways unimaginable. Commitment will be a key element to obtain changes, if they happen at all. At the end, if the changes lead to creating an ethically conductive environment and workplace, the nurse would have advocated for patients, herself and colleagues.

Ethics are moral principles which set guidelines for nurses to distinguish between the right and wrong action (Chaloner, 2007). He further mentioned that nursing is an ethical profession with an ultimate goal of promoting the health and wellbeing of patient through good ethical decision-making process. As supported by Cohen and Erickson (2006), they stated that nurses are expected to hold their responsibilities and accomplished their duties to safeguard their patients in daily nursing practices. However, they also addressed that, nowadays nurses face more ethical dilemmas in their practices while maintaining at patient’s best interest. Chiaranai (2011) explained that ethical dilemma arises from having the need to choose between two or more

Grebner, L. A. (2009). Ethics case studies for health information management. Clifton Park, NY: Cengage.

Ethical dilemmas are familiar to most nurses, but resolving dilemmas is not an easy task for them. The ethical decision-making framework is a good guide when dealing with ethical dilemmas. Firstly, nurses need to identify issues from different perspectives from all those associated with the issues (McDonald & Then 2014). Above three cases involve with nurses, patients, hospitals and education providers. Each party has different issues such as patients being at risk, nurses not being professional, etc.

Build a mirror CRM production system over the next two weeks so that a rebuilding of the main CRM system could occur to plug security holes and assure that another DoS attack would not be successful.

Nursing is a profession where often we as nurses come across situations that are a challenge to our ethical decision making.  When there are repetitions of such situations nurses start to feel morally distressed in their job which in turn often starts affecting the care they provide to their patients. Moral distress occurs when the nurse experiences difficulty in acting according to his or her own moral values due to an external barrier (Falco-Peguerlos et al, 2015). There has been a lot of interest in exploring the reasons which lead to the moral distress or anxiety experienced by nurses. With the increasing need for technology, documentation and ever changing health care system, it has lead to increased expectations from nurses especially that work in acute care hospitals with shorter patient stays.

As nurses, we encounter ethical issues almost on a daily basis. Consequently, nurses can experience moral distress because they always want to do what is considered “the right thing” to do in each situation. However, we must remember that what one person may consider to be ethical, may be vastly different from what another person approaching the situation with a different point of view deems as ethical. A nurse’s ability to influence patient care outcomes should be done in an ethically appropriate manner. Ethical decision making is a process that can be refined and used in addressing any ethical dilemma. The American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics is a guide for nurses to utilize to promote and advocate for the rights of the patients, and activity which should be at the part of all decision making (ANA, 2001).

The case of Richard Adessi appears to be a rather simple one at first glance. As he was leaving for work during a snowstorm that kept many others at home, he dropped dead in his garage from an apparent heart attack. After following in his father's footsteps and working at IBM from the time he was just eighteen, Adessi was just four months shy of his thirty year anniversary with the company. That fact proves to be problematic when deciding what to do for his surviving family members. If Adessi had worked the full thirty years before his death his family would be eligible for his full retirement of $1,800 a month and free lifetime healthcare. However, with only 29 years in they would instead receive only $340 a month and have to pay $473 a month to continue their healthcare coverage.