Nursing Ethical Dilemmas

Ethics plays a very important role in the healthcare setting, especially when minors are involved. There are several factors and outliers that affect the decision making process as well as the quality of patient care. A major dilemma nurses face is confidentially, especially when parents or guardians have certain legal rights over the minors that limit their choices. All patients whether they are minors should still be able to expect confidentiality. The argument is whether or not teens are able to make these difficult medical decisions alone and whether they understand what’s going on, the procedure process, and all the risks and consequences involved. The ethical dilemmas that many nurses face with teen pregnancies are confidentiality, informed consent, and competence. Nurses face whether or not to

I have taken into account; The code of professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses and midwives, I have gained and maintained individuals’ right to privacy and confidentially regarding the patients name and trust details (Nursing and Midwifery Council 2015 p. 6).

This can include cases of perceived “pain-seeking” patients or “frequent flyers”. It can be difficult to treat those we see as trying to “use the system” for pure personal gain equally to those we may see as “truly ill”. It is important to remember to treat everyone in the same manner. Another important provision is provision 3. This provision states, “The nurse promotes, advocates for, and strives to protect the health, safety, and rights of the patient.” This means that nurses must always do everything thinking of the patient’s best interest first. This includes making sure they are fully informed before signing any consents for procedures and questioning any orders that may seem inappropriate for said patient. It is the nurse’s job to be the patient’s advocate and to always provide a safe environment for the patient.

The ANMC (2010, pp.6) state on the topic of confidentiality, that nurses must insure the information obtained in a professional setting remain private and that information received is not used by nurses to give them an advantage or power in any way. Education in the matter is one solution to guarantee the boundaries and to keep a professional position. These breaches can be classified as boundary crossings, boundary violations or sexual misconduct and can lead to violations of a nurse’s professional responsibility causing consequences to occur.

#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 Royal College of Nursing (2015) (RCN), believe professional values are to be followed to create the evolving nurse, with Advocacy highlighted as a fundamental feature. The central thesis of this paper is to reflect my understanding of advocacy against my own clinical practice as a first-year student nurse. The analysis to reflect on this clinical practice will use Driscolls (2007) ‘The What?’ Model, which questions the stages of the learning cycles to reflect on, the incident, what has been learned and the outcome on both current and future practice. Patient Confidentiality will be protected and respected throughout this reflection as described in The Nursing and Midwifery code (2015) (NMC), and The Data Protection Act (1988), all personal information including the patient’s name is considered privileged information and be dealt in a way which does not comprise the patient’s dignity or infringe upon their right to privacy.

This assignment will consist of discussing and identifying issues that directly impact on the professional practice of nursing with the concept of consent. During my nursing placement, I witnessed consent occurring on a day-to-day basis. “A fundamental principle underlying ethical practice is ‘informed consent.’” (Dobson, 2008) Such as the consent to treatment is fundamental, as all healthcare professionals have a responsibility to ensure that they gain consent prior to proceeding with any care or treatment. The principle of consent is an imperative part of medical ethics and the international human rights law. Consent needs to be valid, therefore it must be voluntary and informed, with this the individual giving consent must have the capacity to make the decision. Healthcare professionals needs to provide all the necessary information in relation to the terms of what the treatment involves, which includes the benefits, risks and if there are any other valid alternative treatments and what will happen if treatment does not proceed. Informed consent applies when a person can be said to have given consent based on a clear appreciation and understanding of the facts, and the implications and consequences of an action.

For many healthcare provider’s and registered nurses, ethical decision-making invokes the concept of ethical dilemmas (Guido, 2014). When healthcare providers and registered nurses establish a trusting relationship with their patients these caretakers can sometimes experience a variety of ethical dilemmas throughout their healthcare careers. However, caring for a patient's one’s personal belief can sometime intertwine with patients personal and ethical beliefs. When making ethical decisions, nurses need to combine all the elements using an orderly, systematic, and objective approach (Guido, 2014). Registered nurses have a moral and ethical obligation to ensure patient safety regardless of their personal beliefs (Inoue, Karima & Harada, 2017).

Nurses are subject to a plethora of legal, ethical, and professional duties which can be very challenging on a day to day basis. Some of these duties include respecting a patient 's confidentiality and autonomy, and to recognize the duty of care that is owed to all patients. As nurses our duties are always professional; however there are legal implications if these duties are breached. We also must consider when it is okay as nurses to breach these duties and therefore ethical issues arise. As nurses one of our main priorities is to advocate for our patients, without our own personal feelings on the matter taking over.

I enjoyed your thoughtful post. As I pondered your ending question, it seems unfair to drain the healthcare system of money and resources for a person who refuses to take care of their own health. This is where ethical dilemmas become a reality. As nurses, we have all cared for that patient. They refuse to follow the doctor’s orders and return to the hospital unit time and time again with the same issue, as before, but each time it gets just a little worse. They are laying in the hospital bed barely able to catch their breath and state, “This time, I’m going to quit smoking. You won’t see me here again.” But sure enough, they once again return with an exacerbation of their symptoms and the care starts all over again. As a nurse, it is easy

All health care professionals have ethical dilemmas from time to time and health care administrators have a moral duty to question and address issues in the organization. A Johns Hopkins magazine journal titled, Nursing is hard. Unaddressed Ethical Issues make it even harder is a detailed case study/ current event of nurses struggling in their profession. Nurses have a tough and rewarding job to treat, medicate, educate, and deal with emotional stress for the patients. This type of ethical issue nurses are facing range from not speaking up from short-handedness that affects quality of care to not having enough supply of blood and organ donations. Additionally, when it comes to end-of-life of adults and infants there are standard procedures of handling and communicating to families about it. Nurses are ultimately faced with a difficult dilemma of knowing the moral decision and not carrying out the decision or simply

In the busy daily operations of the healthcare system, one may be surprised to learn of the internal disruption that often transpires among nurses – violence. Lateral violence is occurring; this includes incivility and bullying, which can be described as disruptive acts intimidating fellow colleagues and may pose a threat to patient care (Yoder-Wise, 2015). As a group, we were given an opportunity to experience conflict within the workplace firsthand and then asked to find a suitable resolution. As the assigned role of the nurse manager, the following will analyze the ethical framework and the communication techniques utilized during the group assignment. Ethical Framework

Nursing leaders are burdened with ethical responsibilities for their nursing staff, patients, their organization and their profession ( Dunham-Taylor & Pinczuk, 2015). This is because nursing leaders must cope with the realities of limited resources and have to make difficult choices that prioritize resource needs into those that are fulfilled immediately, those that are partially fulfilled, and those that are either differed or rejected (Harlew, 2013; Marquis & Huston, 2014). In addition, leadership decisions are strongly influenced and determined by social, political and economic factors (Dunham-Taylor & Pinczuk, 2015). As a result, the debate on the healthcare resources allocation for a rationing environment often takes on an ethical perspective.

One example of a dilemma is a healthcare setup where the ethical requirements in any medical facility are to offer treatment to any deserving patient. According to the nursing profession, it is ethically wrong to leave a dying patient unattended, as the nursing standards mandate all medical nurses to attend to the patients with care and sufficient time possible to avoid medical errors and negligence. The regulatory dilemma occurs when the health insurance company mandates the billing department of all the patients on the fee schedule plan. Offering the services will be violating the insurance company’s laws while neglecting the patient results to an ethical issue. When physical therapist considers choosing between risking violations of regulations

Nurses and all other health care professionals continue to be confronted with ethical and legal issues in their daily practice. In order to protect the legal and ethical rights of the patient the health care professional must be knowledgeable about ethical principles (Guido, 2014). Ethics involves the principles or assumptions underpinning the way individuals or group ought to conduct themselves; ethics is concerned with motives and attitudes and the relationship of these attitudes to the individual (Guido, 2014). The healthcare professionals should be dedicated to provide competent medical care with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights (AMA, 2015). Ethical principals are developed for the benefit of patient