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Ethical Standards In Nursing Essay

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character to the previous one. Whereas the first standard gives extreme importance to the patient's autonomy, the second standard extremely emphasizes on the outcome of a competent decision. It deals with the best interest of the patient. This standard mentions that a decision has to be reasonably and rationally justified. If a patient's decision fails to meet these criteria, the decision should be rejected immediately. Then appropriate steps should be taken. Contrary to what the first standard relies on, this standard heavily puts emphasis on the patient's well-being and gives minimal importance to his autonomy. Such standard grounds are based on rationality, but they fail to understand the importance of the patient's values and beliefs related to cultural ethics, religious values or social morality. Thus, the balance is lost. …show more content…

This standard relies on the process through which a decision is to be made. But when a patient is unable to go through such process, this standard fails to stand on its ground. It is to some extent an ambiguous concept that tries to meet both sides of the previous two standards. Determination of competence is the core part of the ethical and legal decision making. Brock and Buchanan (1989) have made it clear that competence is not a global concept, but it is mainly related to specific decision-making. We all have to understand the standard values of this problem. To decide the competence of a person, we must analyze the situation under which a decision has to be made and also the nature of the decision that is to be made. Thus, time and condition play vital and defining roles in decision making. In medical decision making, it is the complexities of a particular treatment and of the given information that have a great influence. A patient can give consent to a life-saving treatment and it does not require a high level of

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