Ethical Decision Making In Nursing

Ethics plays a very important role in the healthcare setting, especially when minors are involved. There are several factors and outliers that affect the decision making process as well as the quality of patient care. A major dilemma nurses face is confidentially, especially when parents or guardians have certain legal rights over the minors that limit their choices. All patients whether they are minors should still be able to expect confidentiality. The argument is whether or not teens are able to make these difficult medical decisions alone and whether they understand what’s going on, the procedure process, and all the risks and consequences involved. The ethical dilemmas that many nurses face with teen pregnancies are confidentiality, informed consent, and competence. Nurses face whether or not to

Ethical issues have always affected the role of the professional nurse. Efforts to enact this standard may cause conflict in health care settings in which the traditional roles of the nurse are delineated within a bureaucratic structure. Nurses have more direct contact with patients than one can even imagine, which plays a huge role in protecting the patients’ rights, and creating ethical issues for the nurses caring for the various patients they are assigned to. In this paper I will discuss some of the ethical and legal issues that nurses are faced with each and every day.

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).

Ethics, the rules and principles that guide right behaviors or conduct, are foundational to the field of bioethics, which focuses on ethical issues in healthcare (Mclennon, Uhrich, Lasiter, Chamnes, & Helft, 2013). Nurses are faced with ethical decision making principles daily when caring for their patients, some days more than others. According to Yoder-Wise (2011), ethics may be distinguished from the law because ethics is internal to an individual, looks to the ultimate “good” of an individual rather than society as a whole, and concerns the “why” of one’s actions (p. 91). In this particular situation, the nurse has to decide if she will respect the wishes of the patient’s family members or be upfront and honest with her patient and

#1. According to Nursing Leadership and management ATI ethics is defined as an expected behavior of a certain group in relation to what is considered right or wrong. (Henery, McMichael, Johnson, DiStasi, Ball, & Holman, 2016) There are six ethical principles they are autonomy which is the ability of the client to make personal decisions, even when those decisions might not be in the client’s own best interest. The second principle is beneficence which is care in the best interest of the client. Third is fidelity which is keeping ones promise to the client about care that was offered. The next principle is justice which is fair treatment in matters related to physical and psychological care and use of resources. Then there is non-maleficence which is the nurse’s obligation to avoid causing harm to the client. The last principle is veracity which is the nurse’s duty to tell the truth. (Henery, McMichael, Johnson, DiStasi, Ball, & Holman, 2016)

It can be a very difficult task to put aside your own feelings regarding choices of a patient, especially when it feels that their choice is harming or not allowing us as health care providers to prevent further harm. What we must always remind ourselves is that attempting to force our personal morals, values, or convictions on a patient can cause harm as well. It is the duty of a nurse to always protect patients’ rights even when they conflict with our own.

This case is purely about the legal and ethical implications of nurse T.C and her nursing manager of telemetry unit, nurse F.J. This nurse T.C has worked in a highly stressful environment before but her behavior has only recently deteriorated and become emotional with the occasional outbursts and uncontrollable crying. Her behavior put the legal issue of non-maleficence at risk for her patients as it would cause emotional stress on them. However, the legal issue that really matters is her case is that of defamation of her character as well as disclosure of her private and confidential mental state information by F.J to other nurse managers not in the unit she worked and to even the subordinates.

Autonomy is the concept of making a rational decision that is informed and un-coerced. Respect for autonomy is whereby the patient is allowed to act in any way they would like. It means that the patient has the capacity to act in their own intention with their own understanding and without the control of any influences that would prevent them from taking a voluntary and free action ADDIN EN.CITE Hickman20081382(Hickman, Cartwright, & Young, 2008)1382138217Hickman, Susan E.Cartwright, Juliana C.Young, Heather M.Administrators' Perspectives on Ethical Issues in Long-Term Care ResearchJournal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics: An International JournalJournal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics: An International Journal69-78312008University of California Press15562646http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jer.2008.3.1.69( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_5" o "Hickman, 2008 #1382" Hickman, Cartwright, & Young, 2008). Its corresponding virtue is that of being respectful ADDIN EN.CITE Beauchamp20091384(Beauchamp & Childress, 2009)138413846Beauchamp, T.L.Childress, J.F.Principles of Biomedical Ethics2009New York, NYOxford University Press9780195143317http://books.google.com/books?id=_14H7MOw1o4C( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_1" o "Beauchamp, 2009 #1384" Beauchamp & Childress, 2009).

The nurse has the right to excuse herself from the patient’s care if she believes her moral integrity is compromised and asks another nurse to step in and take over the patient’s care. Fidelity by keeping her promise, fairness, truthfulness, her advocacy, dedication, and loyalty to keep a commitment to the patient that his wishes would be honored. The wishes of the patient take precedence over the families wants. (2012, ANA) Justice for the patient’s right to the care he

Relaxation is a necessity in life. The way someone chooses to relax is up to that person. Some people run, some people exercise, some people read a book. Being in a hospital setting can be stressful and some outlets were not possible. A mediation room gives the nurses an outlet.

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.

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

People may think of nurses as super hero’s but they’re still human. Sometimes a nurse may a mistake or make an unethical decision and they would still need to account for it. There was a member of the hospital team that decided to make an unruly decision and may suffer serious consequences. The writer noticed that one of her team members had alcohol on her breath. As a nurse, they take a pledge and it is their responsibility to maintain a safe environment for all.

In practice, nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas on a daily basis that test their knowledge (Boggs, 2010). The Canadian Nurses Association code of ethics helps guide these moral dilemmas. It is the foundation for nurse’s practice, and nurses must be commited to following the values outlined in it. One of the values that must be followed is to “provide safe, compassionate, competent and ethical care” (Ecker & Bouchal, 2010, p. 91). Although the code of ethics helps guide a nurse’s practice, it does not distinguish appropriate behaviour in every circumstance; a situation can be unique in the environment.

A career in nursing is a challenging one. There is a high demand for physical strength when working a long, twelve-hour shift, and an even higher demand for emotional strength when communicating with clients and family members alike. In both cases, the best asset a nurse has available is the ability to think critically. The nurse is constantly applying themselves in therapeutic ways in order to help deliver the best possible evidence-based outcomes for clients. Behind all these processes lies the basis to choose between right and wrong; ethics. The chosen case study presents a common ethical dilemma. The night before a client’s surgery, the nurse explains the procedure to the client. When asking the client to recall the procedure he describes a different procedure altogether, indicating that the client is not informed of the surgical outcomes. According to the College of Nurses of Ontario, under the Consent Practice Guideline, this becomes a breach of consent, as the client is incapable of making an informed decision. Therefore the surgeon must explain the procedure to the client and the client must be reassessed. If they are still found incapable of decision-making, a hierarchy of substitute decision makers must be followed. The client’s surgeon must be contacted as soon as possible in this situation (CNO, 2013). The dilemma herein is when to call the surgeon after obtaining the information from the client. The two most