Ethical Theories of Nursing

As a registered nurse practicing in the state of California I am responsible for practicing within my states legal regulations and nursing scope of practice. My concern for the welfare of the sick and injured allows me to practice ethical provisions of nursing. These are required if I am to carry out competent and effective nursing care. Nursing encompasses the prevention of illness, the alleviation of suffering, and the protection, promotion, and restoration of health in the care of individuals. Therefore, as health care professionals we must be familiar with the different philosophical forces, ethical principles, theories and values that influence nursing. At the same time, we must be respectful to our patient’s

between two sets of human values, both of which are judged to be “good” but neither of

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 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).

The importance of ethical theory plays a large role in nursing practices. It is often difficult to understand where the lines of confidentiality should be drawn, so in order to help decipher the feelings nurse practitioners have of what they consider to be fair or unfair, there are a number of ethical theories that can be used in order to

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

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,

#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)

The nursing profession is a very intricate and comprehensive vocation that brings forth many situations that every nurse ought to be prepared to resolve ethically. These situations may be easily settled or may be quite complex. There are four main principles of health care ethics that are pertinent within the management of each client to assist with circumstances brought forth by each individual. The American Nurses Association (ANA) defines a difference between the meaning of client and patient. A client is one who takes advice from a practitioner whereas a patient is one who is “undergoing medical treatment” (American Nurses Association, 2015). It is the obligation of the medical professional to ensure each client receives a) respect for autonomy, b) nonmaleficence, c) beneficence and d) justice. These four principles, although listed, are not in any particular order and one does not take precedence over the other. Every client has a basic human right to assume these principles upon each meeting with a health care professional as a prima facie duty of the practitioner.

Nurses are advocates for the community, they help and support the people live healthy lives. Nurses peruse their actions by using their knowledge and skills gained from previous years to current times. Overall, nurses experience difference ethical beliefs, their own perception of care, a variety of goals and strategies, and personal declaration.

One of the approaches to nursing ethics is a “Right Action Approach” which indicates to us how nurses will act in the best interest of the patient and provide good sound nursing care. In laymen’s terms it means that we will always act in the best interest of the patient and forsake the opinion and input from self and other outside influences that have other ulterior motives. A second approach to nursing ethics is that of the “Virtue ethics approach” which simply implies that a nurse operates from a disposition of character having strong virtue and displays a great affinity for higher moral compass and decision basis. These are just a couple of the different approaches to the ethics of nursing and we will now examine the content or male up of ethics itself.

My philosophy of nursing is to be an advocate for patients and care and treat each patient holistically and always provide a safe environment while providing patient care. As nurses, we must remember that patients are not and should never be addressed by their room number or medical conditions. Each patient is required and deserves individualized attention and care. As nurses, we should implement individualize clinical judgment to help meet the needs of the patient according to their condition. As nurses, we should enable patients by urging them to end up plainly dynamic accomplices in their own care and take part in shared objective setting amongst ourselves and the patient. Medical professionals are entitled to keep up patient secrecy with the exception of when we have an obligation to report as ordered by law. We should teach patients and their families on illnesses, medicines, and sound practices with a specific end goal to enhance their results.

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

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).