Legal And Ethical Concerns Of Nursing Health Care

Patients have the right to self-determination and individuals should have control over their own lives. With respect for human autonomy comes respect for patient rights. Apart of the nurses job is to promote, advocate and protect the rights, health, and safety of our patients. Patients have the right to determine their health needs, make informed decisions, and the right to information regarding their treatment and also the refusal of treatment. Nurses are obligated to know the rights of a patient and to make sure the patient understands their treatment plan. Supporting patient autonomy includes making decisions in the best interest of the patient, considering their values and recognizing differences between cultures. In the treatment

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.

Topic: Choose an aspect of the law and discuss this in relation to the role of the nurse. (Consent)

Gaining a patient consent prior to the medical procedure has claimed simple yet imperative process of patient care for nursing professionals as some of the legal implications can occur that may lead to a negligence on clinical care, risk the nursing registration or even criminal assault that is resulting a litigation, if it does not proceed accordingly. The patient’s consent can be obtained in various ways, such as implied, verbal or written forms are available and most importantly, different types of consent will require on the nature of treatment. Informed consent is an ongoing, practical process in relation to the patients’ health care in the clinical setting which would involve providing sufficient information about the clinical procedure and treatment that the patient expects during the medical procedures. By giving the consent, the patient would sign or agree with the treatment that he would undertake, aware of the risks and possible consequences and accept that he had fully-explained by the doctor regarding to the procedures. The patient’s consent should be given autonomously which means free of pressure and without any coercion from making decision. This case study discusses why does the registered nurses need to obtain consent from the patient prior to a medical procedures and what sort of action should the registered nurse take if she/he witnessed the nursing staff performing procedure without patient consent. This essay will also examine how the scenario in regard

Nursing is an all encompassing profession in which practitioners are not only proficient in technical medical functionality, they also have the obligation to remain compassionate and respectful of patients and as such are expected to adhere to pre established codes of ethics. Of these ethics, autonomy is of extreme importance as it offers patients a sense of personal authority during a time where they may feel as if their lives, or at the very least their health, is no longer under their control. Autonomy in the context of nursing allocates the patient and often their family with the final word on the course of treatment. The concept of patient autonomy is a highly variable subject in all fields of health care. It is a universal concept that varies widely in its meaning and interpretation. Autonomy in its simplest form can be defined as a state of independence or self governing (Atkins, 2006). Patient autonomy can also be defined as the ability to make once own decisions, based on one’s sound judgment. It is defined by the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2011) as the "agreement to respect another 's right to self determine a course of action; support of independent decision making." This seemingly straight forward ethical concept is rife with difficulties when one considers potential disagreements that may arise even when informed consent is provided, particularly among children or vulnerable people. Relevant research and

Time, cost, and efficiency. Those three barriers are the challenges within Bellin’s current refill team covering six clinics. Beginning with medications not being filled at office visits. Patient’s changing pharmacy’s. Refills remain that the pharmacy and patients reading their medication bottles that state Refills remaining:0 and that is only due to the last older script being pulled from the pharmacy file. A new script has been often sent in but doesn’t register when a patient picks up a new script bringing the patient to call the clinic for a refill. When really a new script is on hand at the pharmacy already. So, then I research and verify with the pharmacy. Then there is the common scenario of the patient calling the clinic requesting

To put it another way, making decisions for patients can be placed in the hands of the physician and healthcare team. Sometimes health care professionals run into ethical dilemmas where it’s totally left up to them on what to do about a patient because the patient has no family members or friends. However without consent from that patient or at least a guardian the health care team is confronted with not allowing the patient to make their own choices even though they are unable to speak on their own behalf. Consent is not all the time concerned with the living but may consist of asking agreement. Here is a case about a thirty-five year old male who several years before had a pacemaker implanted, but all the way up to know the pacemaker is reaching elective replacement, before anything can be done it is the nurse duty to make sure they patient understand what is going on and consent willingly to the procedure but because the patient is unable to speak on his behalf to say what he would like to be done, Beauregard (2012). For the reason that the patient has no family members or friends

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.

Nurses are responsible for being ethical, competent, safe, and stay consistent with local, state, and federal laws. They must have an understanding of how to apply these principles when providing care to a client, they are not only responsible for understanding but also protecting client’s rights. Clients who are in a mental health setting have legal rights and they are guaranteed the same rights as any other person. These rights include, the right to humane treatment and care, the right to vote, the rights related to granting, forfeiture, or denial of a driver’s license, the right to press legal charges against another person, they have the right to refuse treatment, a right to confidentiality,

Nurses are the front line health care providers and are daily challenged with ethical dilemmas at a growing rate in their field of work. Thus, they are bound by rules and regulation in order to perform at the best of their abilities for any organisation to work smoothly. Therefore, dealing with each situation requires the nurse to set their own values and beliefs in order to provide effective care. Thus these situations are diverse and dynamic, whereby many conflicts arose concerning the best choice for the client in ethical decision making.

Circumcision...Is it an issue? Explore the human and ethical issues surrounding circumcision. Is this a medical right or a human rights issue? Why are people so against it...why are some so for it? What is the role of the nurse in relations to an ethical dilemma involving circumcision?

All patients have both a right to treatment and a right to refuse medical care. “Health care laws grant patients the right to control their own care, even in the face of a medical crisis” (FindLaw, 2016). Client’s rights sometimes become a dilemma or debate within health care. Professionals often have to choose a right or wrong, which can vary from nurse to nurse. Frequently, the concern involves patient refusal of: a medication, a simple treatment or procedure, or a cultural issue. While refusal generates concerns, they are not always life threatening. For instance, an elderly patient refuses to eat, but the nurse recognizes the consequences will impair the patient. The question is “Does the nurse have the “right” to make the patient

Ethics play a major role in the nursing profession on a daily bases. In the case study, the ethical principles involved were beneficence, veracity, confidentiality, and vulnerability. Beneficence is defined as doing good for a patient by removing or preventing harm. The child will be removed from the abusive situation, and she will no longer be susceptible to physical or sexual abuse (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). Veracity principle is when the nurse tells the truth. In this situation, the nurse is obligated to report the abuse to the appropriate organization. This ensures open communication and respect between both parties. Confidentiality principle is defined as the patient’s information about medical and personal issues will be secured

Nurses who suffer from burnout, tend to increase individual and organizational susceptibility to legal and ethical issues within the medical profession. Nurses who become burnt out or chronically overwhelmed, and disenchanted with their job, tend to suffer from emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion (Brennan, 2017). These stresses can affect the choices nurses make in negative ways. Poor choices may include a breach in ethics that will potentially impact patients, coworkers, and organizations negatively, as well as increase professional and personal liability. Nurses deal with many types of issues that are as dynamic as they are serious. Most of the time the personal impact of these dynamics are just pushed

It is said that nurses hold a certain power over patients, which makes the nurse-patient relationship unequal and takes independence away from the patient. In order to allow the patient more independence and freedom of choice, the law has come up with the concept of patient autonomy. This provides the patient with a chance to voice their own opinion and the power to consent to or to refuse medical treatment and it is a legal right of the patient. This is grounded in the constitution as stated in Article 40.3 (1)