Professional nurses encounter a variety of legal ethical and bioethical issues on a daily basis. For this reason, it is essential that all nurses are aware of current state and national legislation, acts and guidelines and the implications of these for nursing practices as well as legal processes, principles of open disclosure and the role of a coroner in the health sector. In this way, nurses can adhere to the overarching guidelines for practice as well as working within the code of conduct, competency standards and scope of practice. This paper will provide an overview of legal and ethical parameters of professional nursing practice.
Myrtle Aydelotte once said, “Nursing encompasses an art, a humanistic orientation, a feeling for the value of the individual, and an intuitive sense of ethics, and the appropriateness of action taken.” In Pediatrics, nurses are faced with many ethical challenges that reflect back to their own personal beliefs and values, in congruent with being able to provide the best quality care both ethically and legally for children without autonomy. When providing care for these patients who do not have autonomy, the nurse’s priority is to advocate and support the child and the families’ needs on a daily basis. The purpose of this ethical paper is to project the dilemma and ethical issues that nurses often encounter involving children, including those who are unable to make decisions for themselves.
Nursing Excellence, The Online Newsletter for Children's Nurses, e-Edition, Issue 9, Code of Ethics for Nurses, Jo A. Lyons, MOB, BS, RN
Nursing is known to be one of the most challenging careers, owing to the tough responsibilities that nurse practitioners are charged with and the immense sensitivity of their role (Li, 2013). Both Registered nurses and nurse practitioners work together monitoring a range of patients’ health and providing them with adapt care needed within their scope of practice. However, the roles and the responsibilities they bestowed are different. Creating a balance between a tough job and the extremely sensitive wellbeing of a patient, which lies in the decisions that a nurse practitioner makes, does surely propel one to the pinnacle of clinical nursing. As they carry out this sensitive role, they are also expected to be active in a wide range of other areas, including research, education, policy, and clinical governance. It is true that the working environment in which they work, to a considerable extent, does not provide the flexibility needed by nurse practitioners in an effort to carry out these complex roles, but they somehow have shown they are able to achieve this (Fleming & Carberry, 2011). This essay looks to justify the claim that nurse practitioners are the pinnacle of clinical nursing drawn from evidence from existing literature. It will demonstrate the roles and responsibilities a nursing practitioner holds a higher expectation than a registered nurse. It is also argued though that there is immense pressure on registered nurse, making the nurse practitioners role not as
A. As we (as nursery nurses) are the ones that spend time with the children and look after them, we are the first contact for not only the children but for their parents too. So it’s very important that we are seen as professional and competent people at all times. I, as an individual, work alongside a small team of professional childcare workers to support, inspire, care for and look after all the children within my care. I will maintain a safe environment for the children to explore, learn and play in. I am polite to other staff, children and parents and communicate well with everyone.
This essay focuses on the impact of historical development of nursing on contemporary representations of the nursing profession. It examines the professional identity of nursing and further discusses the contribution of modern nursing, social, cultural and political factors that influences the professional identity of a nurse. The essay also looks into the professional regulations and the role of the nurse’s and midwifery Council (NMC) in the protection of the public. Finally, this essay will discuss nursing education, the media, stereotype, and their impacts on nurses as well as demonstrate my understanding as a student nurse to challenge the professional identity of nurses.
This essay will consider ethics in nursing, discuss values and morals and how dignity and respect in patient care is influenced; considering the importance of reflection and the implications it has on effective practice from the perspective of a student nurse. The scenario “Call Me Joe” provided by Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2010a) highlights concerning issues and bad practice that are happening in modern day nursing practice, and using the Driscoll and Teh (2001) reflective model: What, Now What and So What, to consider the care that Joe is receiving; considering how the nursing practice affects him directly and the implications of the nature of knowledge in nursing practice. Part of the way in which nursing practice is
A study was done at a 1,300 bed urban facility over a 13-week period. The purpose of the study was to describe the causes of inpatient falls in hospitals (Hitcho, et al., 2004). All falls were reported except falls in the psychiatry service and during physical therapy sessions. During the 13-week period, a total of 183 patients at an average age of 63.4 years old fell. Of the total number of falls 79% were unassisted, 85% happened in the patient room, 59% occurred during the evening or overnight shift, 19% were while walking, and 50% were elimination related (p. 732). In this study it was identified that many patients did not use their call bell before getting up because they did not believe they needed assistance. It was stated that, “perhaps patients need to be better educated on the effects that a new environment, decreased activity, medications, tests, and treatments can have on patients’ energy and ability to ambulate safely” (p. 737). The findings of this study showed that falls not only happen in the elderly, but in the younger population as well. Patients that fall in hospitals are often unaided and are due to elimination needs. To prevent falls and decrease injury rates, more studies need to be done.
Nursing as a profession is an incredibly varied field, with as many opinions on how and why as there are nurses. It is therefore incumbent on each nurse to determine what aspects of nursing research and history will influence her practice. This work is presented as a Professional Nursing Mission Statement for the author. In the following pages, the governing bodies, ethical code, professional traits, nursing theorist and theory, and historical figure that guide personal nursing practice are presented with scenarios demonstrating their effects. Providing the building blocks for an individual approach to nursing will result in a deeper understanding of practice.
As an individual’s ethics will play a large part in their practice, there are specific guidelines and legislation that exist to ensure that nurses, as well as other health professionals, practice in a way that is ethical (Avery, 2013). These laws further exists to attempt to simplify the ethical issues that sometimes present in nursing practice and to attempt to guide one’s actions. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) provides guidance to nurses by providing a number of professional codes and guidelines (Avery, 2013). The NMBA has developed a code of ethics for nurses comprising of eight codes (Avery, 2013). These are as follows; 1) Nurses value quality nursing care for all people; 2) Nurses value respect and kindness for self and others;
This essay is going describe the skills that student nurses need to demonstrate to show that they have a clear understanding of good nursing practice. This essay will focus on four inter-related skills that complement each other in achieving goals (Barker 2007). The goal that these nursing skills seek to achieve is good nursing practice as according to Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC 2008) mission of protecting the health and welfare of the public. NMC is the National Regulatory body that stipulates and regulates standards of education, training, and conduct of nurses and midwives throughout Great Britain and islands. They have published four core principles to ensure people are treated as individuals with respect and dignity
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).
The profession of nursing has matured from the time of Florence Nightingale. Nursing has gone from just treating dying soldiers on the battlefield to helping guide people through their entire lives from birth to death. The maturation of nursing has led to changes in nursing philosophy and allowed for practitioners of Nursing to meld these philosophies together to form their own philosophy. In this paper I will explain my philosophy of nursing and compare it to Virginia Henderson 's definition of nursing along with discussing some of the changes to Nurse philosophy I will also discuss some of the difficulties to being a patient advocate.
Blackwell, w. (2014) states that we live in a society governed by an excessive extent of rules and regulations. Many of these rules apply to every individual within society for example rules relating to the use of public services; while other rules will focus and apply only to specific groups of individuals such as healthcare professionals. The aim of this assignment is to discuss the concept of consent in relation to the role of the nurse, with the purpose to demonstrate the ethical and legal implication of consent on nursing and professional practice.
Nursing is an esteemed profession that has developed over many years. This paper will explore the factors that influenced the development of the nursing profession, the roles and responsibilities of nurses, the many different career opportunities available to nurses as well as the origins of my passion to pursue nursing.