The Ethical Dilemma Of A Family Nurse Practitioner

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.

Upon reflection of the ethical principles affiliated with prescribing for family members, there are clinical, ethical, and legal aspects to consider. According to Thomas et al. (2012), ethical solutions should be integrated and evaluated in all clinical decisions. Nurse practitioners (NP) should refrain from prescribing to self, family, or friends because decisions related to care should be unbiased and fair related to allocation of health resources. This may be difficult under circumstances that involve personal connections. Moreover, there are potential legal and ethical principles that govern practice that may be at risk of when prescribing for family members.

Today many nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals encounter ethical dilemmas on a daily basis. An ethical dilemma can be defined as when there is more than one reasonable solution to a specific scenario. No one solution is more right than the other. In fact, they may both feel wrong, but a decision must be made (Butts & Rich, 2016). In the healthcare setting, nurses should be prepared to think critically and make ethical decisions. There are many factors that contribute to the process of ethical decision making such as ethical perspectives, principles, theories, and guidelines. Ethical decision making is to be rational and systematic. The selected case to be discussed is the case of Jahi McMath,

Nurses confront numerous dilemmas throughout their professional lives. The different types of dilemmas include, but are not limited to, ethical, moral, and legal dilemmas. These are the three most common dilemmas in nursing. A dilemma can be defined in many different ways. But all dilemmas are situations in which you have to make a difficult choice. Chiaranai (2011) states that an “ethical dilemma is a circumstance that arises from fundamental conflicts between ethical beliefs, duties, principles and theories” (p. 250). Therefore, an ethical dilemma forces the nurse to address thought on what is right and what the harm might be to the patient.

Healthcare professionals have an ethical obligation to respect patient’s wishes. Consequently, many legal and ethical dilemmas arise in healthcare in response to clinical decisions related to the needs, beliefs, and preferences of patients and families. Other dilemmas result over concerns about the integrity, competence, or actions of other healthcare professionals. Preserving human dignity, relieving suffering, equality, integrity, and accountability are essential nursing values (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen, & Korhonen, 2015). Nurse leaders have an

moral positions of key individuals involved and identify value conflicts, if any, determine who should make the decision. Identify range of actions with anticipated

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

An ethical dilemma is defined as a mental state when the nurse has to make a choice between the options and choices that he or she has at her disposal. The choice is a crucial task as the opting of the step will subsequently determine the health status of the concerned patient, hence it requires a great deal of wisdom along with proper medical and health training before any such step is opted as it is a matter of life and death. Strong emphasis should therefore be on the acquisition of proper knowledge and skills so that nurses do posses the autonomy to interact with patients regarding ethical issues involved in health care affairs and address them efficiently. It is normally argued that nurses are not provided sufficient

According to the scenario given in example 2, the new nurse on the unit is facing an ethical dilemma by being asked to violate the code of ethics. This scenario regarding the preceptor telling the nurse to violate policy and chart that blood draws were done correctly is violating provision 3. Specifically, if the nurse interjects and decides to not draw the blood cultures too close together and from the same site, it upholds provision 3.5 Protection of patient health and safety by acting on questionable practice. The American Nurses Association code of ethics (2015) states, “Nurses must be alert to and must take appropriate action in all instances of incompetent, unethical, illegal, or impaired practice or actions

Ethics, the rules and principles that guide right behaviors or conduct, are foundational to the field of bioethics, which focuses on ethical issues in healthcare (Mclennon, Uhrich, Lasiter, Chamnes, & Helft, 2013). Nurses are faced with ethical decision making principles daily when caring for their patients, some days more than others. According to Yoder-Wise (2011), ethics may be distinguished from the law because ethics is internal to an individual, looks to the ultimate “good” of an individual rather than society as a whole, and concerns the “why” of one’s actions (p. 91). In this particular situation, the nurse has to decide if she will respect the wishes of the patient’s family members or be upfront and honest with her patient and

Ethics are a set of moral principles that serve as a guiding philosophy for behavior. Consequently it is not a surprise that ethical dilemmas occur daily in the health care setting. Any nurse who refuses to provide care for a patient faces an ethical dilemma (Kuhn, 2012, pp. 412-418). The reasons given for refusal range anywhere from a conflict of personal values to fear of personal risk of injury. Nurses do have the right, at times, to refuse patient care assignments. The decision to accept or reject an assignment must be based upon a judgment by the nurse of the nurse 's ability to provide competent patient care. This paper aims to show both sides of the argument when it comes to nurses refusing a patient assignment. One side believes that nurses has the right to refuse patient assignment, as they must be true to themselves if they want to perform their best on the job. On the other hand, the other side believes that it is the nurse’s responsibility to care for all patients and, therefore nurses cannot simply refuse a patient.

Nurses are constantly challenged by changes which occur in their practice environment and are under the influence of internal or external factors. Due to the increased complexity of the health system, nowadays nurses are faced with ethical and legal decisions and often come across dilemmas regarding patient care. From this perspective a good question to be raised would be whether or not nurses have the necessary background, knowledge and skills to make appropriate legal and ethical decisions. Even though most nursing programs cover the ethical and moral issues in health care, it is questionable if new nurses have the depth of knowledge and understanding of these issues and apply them in their practice

`Ethics' is defined as ."..the basis on which people...decide that certain actions are right or wrong and whether one ought to do something or has a right to something"(Rumbold, 1986). In relating `ethics' to nursing care, "Nursing decisions affect people... nurses have the power to good or harm to their patients" (Bandman et al, 2002). In this essay, the author will also identify the most important ethical principles and concepts of Evan's case, will outline the different stages of one's approach to ethical decision-making by utilising the "DECIDE Model for Ethical Decision-Making" founded by Thompson et al (2000) and will make a decision on the best course of action to take as a nurse in this

The role of ethics in organizational behavior is the underlying factor to the success and longevity of any organization. A set of rules and guidelines focusing on promoting safety, trust, and responsible practice within the workplace must be established internally. Organizations develop code of ethics that center upon the promotion of good. Ethics are vital in developing trusting relationships between employees and administration within.

Nurses often encountered various ethical dilemmas in the practice setting. Both virtue ethics and caring ethics support good ethical decision making for nurses (Park, 2012, p. 149) but these are inadequate to assist in solving an ethical dilemma (Park, 2012, p. 149). For that reason an ethical decision making tool is helpful for the nurses or clinicians to come up with an ethical decision (Kelly, 2012, p. 571) that allows them to gather information, identify any gap of understanding on the issue or the disagreements between the involved parties through a clear communication (Park, 2012, p. 140). Several authors presented an ethical decision making processes (Park, 2012, p. 141), here presented the two processes that can be applied in resolving an ethical dilemma. One example of ethical decision making process is the DECIDE model by Thompson, Melia & Boyd (Allen, Chapman, Francis, & O’Connor, 2008, p. 5) and the Integrated ethical decision-making model which was derived from the combination of the different ethical decision-making models strengths (Park, 2012, p. 140). These two ethical decision-making model steps are identical to each but differ on the detailed instruction on how the steps are to be done or used in actual case. By comparing the two models the integrated ethical decision-making model have a detailed instruction. The