Ethical Issues 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.

A nurse owes a duty to her profession's own code of ethics. Patient autonomy, justice, and respect for patients' dignity are central to nursing practice. The Canadian Nurses' Association (CNA), through the publication of the codes of ethics for nurses, calls upon nurses to

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.

Healthcare professionals have an ethical obligation to respect patient’s wishes. Consequently, many legal and ethical dilemmas arise in healthcare in response to clinical decisions related to the needs, beliefs, and preferences of patients and families. Other dilemmas result over concerns about the integrity, competence, or actions of other healthcare professionals. Preserving human dignity, relieving suffering, equality, integrity, and accountability are essential nursing values (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen, & Korhonen, 2015). Nurse leaders have an

According to American Nurses Association (ANA), (2010) “the nurse promotes, advocates for and strives to protect the heath, safety and right of the patient” (p. 6). Nursing responsibilities should be acted at the highest standard and must be based on legal and ethical obligations.

Maeve and Vaughn (2001) also state that a prison facility necessitates more self-awareness by nursing staff to provide ethical care since prisons are society’s way of punishing, serving justice, and deterring crime. Nel Noddings (1984) described two types of caring that nurses utilize. Natural caring is something that is innate to most. We learned how to care by being cared for. Ethical caring requires intention to operate with compassion despite the individual or circumstances. Maeve and Vaughn (2001) propose that correctional nurses often operate under ethical caring in order to overcome the obstacles faced due to an offender’s behavior or crime. Some of the ethical dilemmas Maeve and Vaughn described that nurses will face in correctional settings are: carrying out the death penalty; providing client confidentiality during exams and discussing diagnosis; inappropriate use of chemical restraints for security rather than medicinal purposes; working with underqualified medical personnel; providing care for offenders who are violent or have an addiction or mental illness; planning/referring offenders for appropriate care once released; caring for incarcerated mothers; and

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a case study addressing ethical leadership, analyzing application of standardized code of ethics on nursing practice, and discussing issues in safety for quality patient care. This paper will support the importance of confidentiality when discussing protected patient information. In addition, the need for continuing education and training for nursing through identification of Federal and State regulations as applied to nursing practice will be

I learned that as a nurse it is my duty to always consider my own well being, along with my patient’s. I must keep a high moral character both in the workplace and in my personal life. I must continue to educate myself and keep myself up to date with all the latest nursing practices and research. I must subject myself to peer review and evaluation. I must never let my personal feelings about a patient’s lifestyle affect my care for them. When met with a tough choice that places me in an ethical crisis I must keep a good head on my shoulders and always have my patient’s best interests in mind. If I feel that a situation at work is in direct conflict with my personal values or my oath to be an ethical nurse I must go through the proper channels to work through the problem.

As healthcare providers, maintaining a patient’s confidentiality, human dignity and privacy is expected at all times. Nurses are faced with maintaining patient confidentiality on a daily basis. The Coded of Ethics for Nurses is the framework of nonnegotiable ethical standards and obligations that all nurses are to uphold. Nurses are to be accountable for their actions and are expected to advocate and strive to protect the rights, health and safety of patients (American Nurses Association, 2011).

Code of Ethics in nursing it is important to make sure the staff and patients are being respected and treated with dignity. The study of ethics has lead to basic concept such as justice and fidelity, autonomy, beneficence and nonmaleficence. It is very important to understand these concepts, because they assist the nurse with making decisions during difficult situations (ANA, 2001, p 6).

The role of a public health nurse encompasses a vast amount of responsibilities. As a basis for practice, public health nurses must adhere to the code of ethics. The code of ethics, developed by Sir William David Ross in the 1940s, is a set of four principles. These principles include autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice (Ivanov, 2013). By incorporating these four main principles into practice, public health nurses can better protect and preserve the human rights of the individual, population, or community to which they serve. Public health nurses are increasingly being faced with ethical, moral, cultural, and political conflicts in today’s society (Ivanov, 2013). Because of these rising issues, it is imperative for public health nurses to be competent and well educated on human rights.

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

Nurses are subject to a plethora of legal, ethical, and professional duties which can be very challenging on a day to day basis. Some of these duties include respecting a patient 's confidentiality and autonomy, and to recognize the duty of care that is owed to all patients. As nurses our duties are always professional; however there are legal implications if these duties are breached. We also must consider when it is okay as nurses to breach these duties and therefore ethical issues arise. As nurses one of our main priorities is to advocate for our patients, without our own personal feelings on the matter taking over.

Both justice and care have a place in the process of ethical decision making, and both will be discussed in this paper ultimately with ethics of care guiding the practice of a DNP prepared nurse. The paper will discuss how ethics of justice and ethics of care affect the quality of education that a nursing student receives from a new nursing school that has an unacceptable pass rate for first time National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) test takers. Standards such as having competent nursing faculty are set by accrediting agencies for teaching institutions, and this paper will discuss the importance of nursing schools to educate future nurses to practice safely.