Moral Integrity In 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

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.

Healthcare provider’s perception and judgment in the patient’s well being as well as taking into account the right of the patient in every action is one of the key elements in nursing practice. International Council of Nurses (ICN), (2006) states “The nurse at all times maintains standards of personal conduct which reflect well on the profession and enhance public confidence” (p. 3). Furthermore, nursing action guided by theory and principles of moral and legal

Nurses follow the morals of acting honestly, fairly, and ethically while caring for the needy. They must hold colleagues to the highest standards of ethical conduct and professionalism. Additionally, nurses must show accountability in providing quality, safe care towards their patients. This is the core value of integrity, which nurses should uphold at all times. This paper will discuss the value of integrity in nursing and describe examples of the use and lack of integrity.

I was eagerly waiting for my first placement to start because I knew very well that this is going to be a life changing experience for me both personally as well as a prominent stepping stone to my career as a nurse. I had many unforgettable experiences during this placement which provided me new knowledge and opportunities for self learning. But the experience described in this reflection was the most shocking and disappointing. This reflection is written on the basis of ethical values of maintaining commitments to clients and maintaining commitments to the nursing profession. The ethical value of maintaining commitments to clients is further explained by CNO (2009) as “,Nurses, as self-regulated professionals, implicitly promise to provide safe, effective and ethical care. Because of their commitment to clients, nurses try to act in the best interest of clients according to clients ’ wishes and the standards of practice. Nurses are obliged to refrain from abandoning, abusing or neglecting clients, and to provide empathic and knowledgeable care. The commitment to client also includes a commitment to respect family members and/or significant other(s), some of whose needs may conflict with those of clients.” CNO (2009) also suggest some behavioural directives to follow the value of maintaining commitments with client , such as putting needs and wishes of clients first ,advocating for maintaining quality client care and making all reasonable efforts to ensure that client safety and well-being is maintained during any job action.

Nursing is not an easy job and those who chose it as their profession are truly special people. Nurses are confronted with ethical decisions that need to be made on a daily basis. Often they know the right thing to do but because of circumstances like institutional structure and conflicts with others, obstacles are created and distress ensues (Jenner, 2001). It is during times like these that nurses must rely on the training that they have received as well as the code of ethics that has been set down for their profession in order to do the right thing.

Moral distress is experienced by nurses every day in today’s health care system. Moral distress has been found to be manifested as anger, frustration, guilt, loss of self-worth, depression, powerlessness and helplessness (Zuzelo, 2007, p. 346). Failure to recognize and manage moral distress is causing nurses to be “burned out” have high turnover rate, and even leaving nursing profession all together.

There are many different careers which entail much more than just a particular degree from some type of post-secondary education program. Typically, all careers have a specific code and level of ethics which are incorporated into the daily responsibilities one is expected to perform in their chosen field. For the basis of this paper, I have chosen to write about the nursing code of ethics. Nursing has a professional code along with the level/employee behavior usually being currently attainable, which means that the behavior expected is normally exhibited by individuals. (Manias 508). However, although nursing seems to require behavior that is “normally” exhibited and tends to be one of the most popular medical fields, there are numerous amounts of ethical issues which have emerged in this field of work since the few being noted in Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing. (Ulrich et al. 2).

The nursing profession has become one of the most respected profession of our time. Nurses have been perceived as honest and ethical for the work that they do. The increasing demand and popularity of becoming a nurse as a career has increased over the past years, but what does it take to become a successful nurse? The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics has accounted nurses to demonstrate the values of integrity and wholeness of character (ANA, 2015). Devine & Chin (2018) defines nursing profession demonstrates “respectfulness, responsiveness, compassion, trustworthiness and integrity” (p. 133). It is imperative that the future of nursing depicts a culture of professionalism relating to moral integrity. The purpose of this concept

Furthermore, integrity is very important in the nursing profession because it represents moral principles, honesty and sincerity. Nurses demonstrate integrity every day; most importantly, integrity is illustrated in every action in a nurse’s role. Hence, integrity is accepting responsibilities for one’s actions and helping rather than harming. The best example for integrity in the nursing filed is not leaving undone duties from one shift to another, this is best described as helping one another instead of making it difficult for each other. Another important aspect of caring is human dignity, which is described as the right to be treated with honor and respect. People should not be judged or classified; accordingly, no matter how a person’s appearance is illustrated, every human being has the right to be treated with dignity by demonstrating honor and respect. Culture has a great impact in today’s society, different cultures have unequal believes; thus, nurse’s need to respect those believes and provide quality care for those patients accordingly. For instance, in some cultures people do not believe in certain medications; as a result, the

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

Moral distress is describe as the phenomenon in which a nurse understands and has clarity about a right action to take, but is constrained from taking it. It differs from an ethical dilemma in which there is recognition of a problem; in which at least two ethically justifiable but opposing solutions can be applied (American Nurses Association, 2014). Moral distress was first recognized among the nursing field; because of this, many of the studies have focused on the nursing population. However moral distress has also expanded to many other fields, making it now a multidisciplinary concern

Moral distress is an ethical issue recently recognized in literature as afflicting nurses in the intensive care unit (ICU). ICU nurses often face conflicting dilemmas where the nurse knows the ethically and clinically correct course of action, but feels powerless to act due to numerous internal and external constraints. This creates feelings of frustration, isolation, and anxiety eventually leading to burnout or leaving the profession altogether. Due to an already approaching nursing shortage, healthcare organizations should put more emphasis on nursing satisfaction and retention in the workplace. This can be accomplished by addressing nursing experiences of moral distress. This correlation study proposes if using the 21-item questionnaire Moral Distress Scale-Revised (MDS-R) in the adult critical care unit properly identifies the intensity of moral distress and frequency of its occurrence. Identifying the primary issue allows further understanding and narrows interventions to focus to the true problem. Overall, results have shown that ICU nurses experience moderate to high levels of moral distress. These findings support the need for proper identification of moral distress, with further research focusing on effective interventions aimed at alleviating moral distress based on the identified root cause.

Nursing upholds high standard on individual moral, to do the right thing. Virtue and responsibility are the cornerstones for nursing profession. Carper describe that for nurses it is increasing getting difficulty to make complex choices within the multifaceted modern health care. These choices raise essential problems about ethically correct action in relation to health promotion and treatment of illness. Clement and Averill presented that ethics generically deal with doing more benefit than harm in actions that are taken during the care of clients.

As far back as Florence Nightingale, professionalism and ethics have been the cornerstone of nursing practice. “Ethical values and practices are the foundation upon which moral actions in professional practice are based” ( LaSala & Bjarnason, 2010). Core professional nursing values (CPNV) are taught and instructed upon in nursing programs. This paper will explore and define the CPNV of altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, and social justice. Although these values are all individual characteristics, I will show that they are all intertwined in the path of care that an ethical practicing nurse walks every day with her patients, without even thinking about it.