Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing

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.

Nurses are facing many legal or ethical dilemmas in their career. Nurses should combine knowledge of ethical and legal aspects of health care and professional values into nursing practice. It is very essential to know what kind of dilemmas nurses may face during their profession and how they have been dealt with in the past.

A patient barrier might include having limited knowledge surrounding life-support systems and treatment options, thereby hindering their ability to fully comprehend or demand certain interventions. Good counseling is therefore essential to overcoming this barrier in implementing the patient’s true and best wishes (Kroning, 2014, p. 222). Another barrier in implementing advance directives concerns the role and influence of family members and the patient. There may be discordance between the desires of the patient and family, which can result in serious debate and tension if not addressed and taken into consideration. Physicians still may have reservations, as certain demands made by the patient may raise ethical concerns in the future, if the provider feels the interventions being done are no longer medically appropriate.

The process of deciding when a terminally ill patient should die lies within the patient, family members, and the

Every medical professional has or will face some ethical and legal issues in the Medical Field, the Nurse Practitioners (NP) are no different. Fant stated that in an ethical dilemma there are no right answers or solutions; however, in these dilemmas there are no wrong answers either. Sule feels that the ethical issues for NPs are in consent and capacity, confidentiality and autonomy, and in the non-compliance on part of patient. Offredy and Townsend both feel that a breech in clinical governance and management can cause

This scenario presents various ethical issues that could be argued several ways from HIPPA violations to whether or not this patient has/had the cognitive ability to understand the execution of an advanced directive and Power of Attorney. Advance Directives are put in place for this very reason. It eliminates the need for family members to make a choice in the heat of the moment and also respects the wishes of the person whom it affects directly. Although Mr. E’s hypoxia could affect his ability to think clearly one cannot assume that he has an altered level of consciousness nor the inability to execute an advance

“An ethical dilemma exists when a choice has to be made in which the consequences may have a potential positive or negative outcome.”("Topic 4: Contemporary Ethical Dilemmas (How do managers evaluate beginning-of-life dilemmas?). ", n.d.) The given scenario presents a patient named Jamilah Shah, who is of Turkish descent, 90 years old and collapsed at the side of her bed in the extended care facility in which she resides. The patient suffers from Chronic Pulmonary disease and diabetes mellitus. The patient was rushed to the ER were the EKG and lab tests revealed she suffered a heart attack and she was started on anticoagulants. The patient has no advance directives and a communication barrier exists, the ER department contacts the emergency contact, one of the patient 's sons Bashir. The patient 's family arrives at the hospital and her son states that he makes the decisions and the wants a do not resuscitate order for his mother and no medical intervention other than comfort care. The social worker handling Jamilahs case is concerned by her family 's lack of support and that the family 's wishes are at odds with the patient 's request for help and her expressed desire to live. Furthermore if the patient does not receive a cardiac catheterization or is considered for a coronary bypass, she will surely die.

There are many situations that cause ethical dilemmas in the scope of nursing practice. One such situation that is encountered repeatedly is that in which a patient has no living will or advance directive to designate when extraordinary life saving measures will be stopped and the patient will be allowed to die. This becomes a dilemma in many cases because there is so much uncertainty in outcomes for individuals. This uncertainty stems from

In cases where CPR is more likely to prolong suffering, it is important for doctors to communicate this with the patient. Though many will decide to opt out of CPR after understanding, doctors must be careful that they allow the patient to make the decision themselves. This is complicated, however, by the fact that family members may be required to make decisions regarding the patient, and often will make choices that the patient would not agree with.

The current health situation should be explained in a non-technical way so the patient (if possible) family, and or valid surrogate can understand every aspect. The physician should also help them understand when there is no hope for recovery. Most often the organs are no longer functioning, or there is little to no brain activity; at this point suffering potentially outweighs the probability of recovery. Medical teams most often realize that the focus should be on comfort, rather than extending a dying life. This decision comes with a great deal of uncertainty, and will always be hard, no matter what age of the patient, or the circumstances. Kathryn Kosh, MD explains that, “Ready access to advanced modern technology has changed death from an event to a process… Defying death requires payment [in the form of] pain and discomfort or in an unacceptable decline in the quality of life.” Often times physicians will not prescribe treatment in the first place knowing that this option will not benefit the patient, prolong suffering; and will likely end in termination anyway. Therefore, allowing the nature of the illness or injury to take its own course of action. Another point of interest regarding this topic is that medical teams realize in most cases, that providing an ethical and dignified death can be just as rewarding as administering aggressive measures to save a

Judie has been experiencing cut backs at work in regards to the hospitals budget, and these cuts have impacted the quality of patient care. She is feeling conflicted because she feels that she is unable to adequately fulfill her duty of nonmalficence. Budgets are a necessary part of running a successful company or business, however, if these budget cuts negatively impact a nurses ability to deliver adequate patient care than that poses an ethical dilemma for the nurse manager (Judie).

It is important for healthcare workers to give critical attention to legal and ethical aspects associated with the delivery of health and social care. Worth noting is the fact that the priority of health care workers is to ensure that they deliver quality care to patients with different illnesses. However, the nursing practice may place one in an ethical dilemma. When handling some patients, health care workers may face difficulties in determining the right options that they should take in order to help the patient and maximise the quality of care. In such cases, health care workers rely on their knowledge concerning both the legal and ethical aspects defining the nursing profession. When handling patients suffering from terminal illnesses, it is the role of health care workers to ensure that a patient can successfully manage the condition, experience reduced pain and approach the end of life stages with a positive outlook. Although it is the intention of the health care workers to help such patients, complications may occur because of the choices made by the patients. The case of a male patient who is 55 years old and chose to decline to adopt the advice and the equipment advised by health care workers presents an ethical dilemma. This paper will discuss Brian’s case study in detail, evaluating and analysing the case study and presenting a final ethical

In end-of-life scenarios, where the patient may not be able to communicate their wishes, decisions must be made either by the healthcare professional(s) or family member(s). However, who gets to decide or where the line should be drawn are not always clear. Consequently, not all decisions may be ethically permissible. To illustrate, I will discuss a scenario in which physicians and family are not in agreement. Upon proving a brief summary and explaining the ethical dilemma, I will provide moral reasons for two ethically permissible choices from which, by referencing the principle of autonomy and Utilitarianism, will determine which course of action ought to be carried out.

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.