Ethical Ethics: The Ethics Of Ethics In Nursing

Nursing is a career that is governed by a set of ethical principles. The duties of a nurse consist of care and support and its important that nurses are aware of their professional ethics. These principles are put into place to uphold and maintain moral values in healthcare. The American Nurses Association (ANA) code of ethics for nurses consists of nine provisions, outlined in the Code of Ethics for nurses with Interpretive Statements. These provisions are constructed to blueprint the role and responsibilities of a nurse. The chosen provisions being discussed will refer to the three main principles of patient autonomy, patient confidentiality, and patient rights.

Ethical practice is another component of the social contract of nursing which is a reflection of the values, beliefs and moral principles of the nursing profession. The American Nurses Association (ANA) has established the “Code of Ethics for Nurses” which serves as a “guideline” for the nursing profession in which clinical judgements and

The topic of ethics is prevalent in health care and addresses a broad range of topics in nursing. In almost every interaction with a patient there could be a situation that may bring up the question of ethics. Fortunately, there is the realization that placing the nurse in the care of a patient, may put the medical personnel in an environment where the ethics are questioned. There are whole departments dedicated to advising nurses in these situations. There are also ethic committees to help guide you when you find yourself in a situation that may question your practice or circumstances.

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.

Nurses rely on personal knowledge and their professional skills to provide ethical care (Creasia & Friberg, 2011). In everyday practice, nurses must balance the needs of their patients against those of the organization, society and themselves. They strive to deliver the highest level of care for patients, but adjusting for limited organizational and personal resources often requires difficult decisions. This paper explores the following scenario suggested by Maville and Huerta: “You are a nurse providing home care to a mother, and you suspect child abuse after observing the mother’s reaction to her child” (as cited by Arizona State University, 2014). When faced with a moral dilemma, a competent nurse incorporates ethical, bioethical and legal considerations. In the proposed story, incorporating the nursing ethics of advocacy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and collaboration will guide the nurse towards an appropriate and legal course of action.

The American Nurses Association (ANA) is an organization with a strong ethical foundation. Nurses in general are known as an honest and trustworthy profession in the United States. This reputation was created because of nursing organizations like the ANA. In this paper the ANA’s goals are described and tied to their ethical principles. The role and importance of the ANA’s ethical values are explored. A discussion of the ANA’s culture and ethical decision making is described. The ANA’s ethical values and how they support author’s ethical views is explained and last the ANA’s social responsibility to the community.

According to Doane and Varcoe (2015) ethical inquiry is essential about the question, what is good, right and just that nurse must incorporate into their nursing practice to afford ethical problem. This form of inquiry emphasizes that every moment of nursing interaction involve ethics and that ethics is a “deeply personal process that is lived in the complexity and ambiguity of everyday nursing work” (Doane & Varcoe, 2015). When complexity and ambiguity of nursing practice is apparent to nurses through the involvement in caring for patient, then ethic of care can be brought forward as a compass to guide moral decision making and ethical care. As stated by Doane and Varcoe that research has shown that when staff and other resources are scarce,

There are many different careers which entail much more than just a particular degree from some type of post-secondary education program. Typically, all careers have a specific code and level of ethics which are incorporated into the daily responsibilities one is expected to perform in their chosen field. For the basis of this paper, I have chosen to write about the nursing code of ethics. Nursing has a professional code along with the level/employee behavior usually being currently attainable, which means that the behavior expected is normally exhibited by individuals. (Manias 508). However, although nursing seems to require behavior that is “normally” exhibited and tends to be one of the most popular medical fields, there are numerous amounts of ethical issues which have emerged in this field of work since the few being noted in Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing. (Ulrich et al. 2).

Truth-telling is an important issue within the nurse-patient relationship. Nurses make decisions on a daily basis regarding what information to tell patients. The specific issue in question is whether a nurse should abide by the Code of Ethics for Nurses by revealing the truth to the patient or refrain from telling the truth to the patient because they are respecting the wishes of the patient’s family. Nurses and health care professionals should always tell the truth to their patients unless the patient forgoes their rights to autonomy or cannot think for themselves. By providing the patient with the truth, they allow the patient to come to terms with their conditions and give them the options for further treatment.

There are several ethical principles that need to be addressed within the nurse researcher-participant relationship, which are autonomy, beneficence, and justice (Judkins-Cohn, Kielwasser-Withrow, Owen, & Ward, 2014). The ethical principles should relate directly to informed consent, for the nursing research process (Judkins-Cohn et al., 2014). In this type of research the nurse faced with a dual role, as researcher and care taker (Judkins-Cohn et al., 2014). Nurses have the dual role, which consist of significant responsibility and demands. Therefore, it is essential that the nurses have a thorough understanding of the research process and informed consent (Judkins-Cohn et al., 2014). “This includes having an understanding of the institutional

Oftentimes, I am asked the question of why I am a nurse, and truth be told, sometimes I don’t know the answer why I want to be a nurse. All I really know is that I have wanted to help those in need since I was a little girl. Time has really flown, I‘ve been a professional nurse for almost 26 years. When we discuss the topic of making ethical decisions today, I look to the very beginning of my nursing career. I was very happy to see my pediatric patients had been discharged home from their illness (e.g. fever, pneumonia, diarrhea, and infection disease etc) after we took good care of them. One day, the parents of a patient who was 2 year old boy with acute kidney

Conducting quality research requires the researcher to perform within both ethical and legal guidelines. “Ethics is the study of right and wrong” (Houser, J., 2012, pg.50). Ethics provide the avenue for decision making and are guided by the researcher’s integrity. Legal guidelines provide direction to the researcher by specifying what is required by law to conduct research. As a nurse researcher, it is an ethical duty to advocate for patients when incompetent, unethical or illegal practices are observed.

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

The combination of professionalism and ethics can be equated with an extraordinary nurse because they are core components in the nursing profession and crucial to patient trust, confidence and wellbeing. Having a degree in nursing is not what makes one a professional. Professionalism is

The ethical dilemma is a situation by which it’s difficult to determine whether a situation is can be handled without disappointing both sides. Therefore, an ethical dilemma exists when the right thing to do is clear or when members of the healthcare team cannot agree on the right thing to do. Ethical dilemmas require negotiation of different points of view (potter, Perry, Stockert, & Hall 2011pg 78).