Ethical Dissonance Between Personal And Professional Values In Nursing

Values are beliefs people are about what is important and morally right or wrong. The values people obtain are often learnt from parents/carers and they may change constantly throughout life. Principles are based on values; they are the basic guidelines individuals follow about what is the correct way to act. In

Values are established by childhood upbringing and help mold them into citizens contributing to society. Those environments include home, school, church, neighbors, cultural backgrounds and social get together’s or

Values help people determine what is right and wrong. They provide our moral compass in life.

Professional values are the foundation for practice; they guide interactions with client, colleagues, other professionals, and the public, by providing the framework for commitment to the Welfare of others. They are also belief or ideas to which an individual is committed and which are reflected in patterns of behavior. Institute of medicine (2000). In this article, I will define Altruism, Autonomy, Human Dignity, Integrity, and Social Justice. I will also identify how these values are demonstrated in our every day lives by other nurses and myself. According to Dougherty (1992) “Altruism is a concern

Burkhardt, M. & Nathaniel, A. (2008). Ethics & issues: In contemporary nursing, (3rd ed.) Clifton Park, NJ: Delmar

Ethical issues can cause a lot of tension and emotional turmoil. Before starting a career in the healthcare profession, nurses must know the code of, the importance of the Nurse Practice Acts and other types of laws, as well as the nurse’s liability when working with patients. Nursing is an ever-evolving profession that has gone through drastic changes in the last few decades, but ethics is still as important as ever. Ethical concepts, nurse practice acts, laws and commitment admissions will be further discussed.

Values relate to our personal principles, morals, and ideals—that is, what we consider to be important.Each person is unique, with their own personal values and beliefs shaped by a number of factors that include culture, religion, and personal experiences.We value each person as an individual, respect their aspirations and commitments in life, and seek to understand their priorities, needs, abilities and limits.

Ethics and values play a major role in nursing professionalism. Nursing professionalism is the way that nurses interact with other professionals and apply knowledge from the basic principles of nursing to better care for their patients. The professional values of nursing include altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, and social justice (“Essentials,” 2008). These values provide guidelines that accurately describe a compassionate and ethical nurse. One of the values that relates to me as well as my future professional nursing role is human dignity. Protecting human dignity means that the nursing professional will respect all individuals or communities they are working with and show them that they are important and are being cared for (“Essentials,” 2008).

Professional values guide the decisions and actions we make in our careers. As nurses we are responsible for caring for patients during birth, death, illness and healing. If we are not aware of the decisions and actions to take it would be impossible to provide our patients with exceptional care. The values that are the foundation of the nursing profession are altruism, autonomy, human dignity, and social justice. In this paper I will define each value and describe their impact on nurses and nursing students.

Values are intangible things that are important to us, and that guide us, individually, to make decisions. Each person has a different set of values, morals, and ethics, which is the reason that each person handles a situation differently. Here, I will discuss my top 5 values, and why they are important to me.

As an individual’s ethics will play a large part in their practice, there are specific guidelines and legislation that exist to ensure that nurses, as well as other health professionals, practice in a way that is ethical (Avery, 2013). These laws further exists to attempt to simplify the ethical issues that sometimes present in nursing practice and to attempt to guide one’s actions. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) provides guidance to nurses by providing a number of professional codes and guidelines (Avery, 2013). The NMBA has developed a code of ethics for nurses comprising of eight codes (Avery, 2013). These are as follows; 1) Nurses value quality nursing care for all people; 2) Nurses value respect and kindness for self and others;

Codes of ethics contain a coherent set of normative principles underlying a nurse’s purpose and associated values (Vanlaere and Gastmans, 2007). Two perspectives of ethics are the ethics of justice and the ethics of care (Botes, 2000). The ethics of justice constitutes an ethical perspective in terms of which ethical decisions are made on the basis of universal principles and rules, and in an impartial and verifiable manner with a view to ensuring the fair and equitable treatment of all people (Botes, 2000). The ethics of care, on the other hand, constitutes an ethical approach in terms of which involvement, harmonious relations and the needs of others play an important part in ethical decision making in each ethical situation (Botes, 2000).

Butts, J.B and Rich,K., (2013,March 1). Ethics in professional nursing care. 3rd Edition. Jones and Bartlett.

Our values start as a child and tend to build or change as we get older. Our values stem from our upbringing and also from our personal beliefs. Values can include a variety of things ranging from integrity, honesty, additional to many other concepts. Values are also very important as they govern how we interact with others. Values are also important as it can be used to define a person and what they stand for. As many people may try hard to hide they personal values it is impossible to overlook what you believe, and what matters to you. Everyone has a personal value system that govern how they live their life and these values start as early as childhood from our parents, environment, and personal experiences. We live in a society that has a major influence on how we live our lives. It is very important to have core values to stand on. Other important component that affect our everyday lives are our personal

Humans have the unique ability to describe their identity, select their values and set up their beliefs. All three of these directly persuade a person’s behavior. Values are our principles and guides. Morals and the values are the basis of human values. Just as a building has a foundation of concrete, the building of human values rests on morals and values. Human values can also be defined as the values of life. A good action performed today remains a good action forever. So, human values are the values of human being for the human beings and by the human beings.