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The Importance Of Ethical Dilemmas In Nursing

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Becoming a nurse includes responsibilities ranging from safe patient care to handling laws and ethical dilemmas that can happen within that patient care. One thing that falls under these responsibilities for a nurse is the mandatory reporting law. “Nurses are mandated to report any suspicion of abuse following facility policy” (Henry, et al., 2016). This includes clients ranging from children to vulnerable persons, such as older and dependent adults. The time frame for reporting abuse is within 30 days of the occurrence. Diagnoses of communicable diseases are also mandated to report to the appropriate agencies, such as local and state health departments. The diseases that are reported vary for each state (Data Collection and Reporting, 2017). The reporting needs to be done by the health care provider within 30 days. The health departments have many tasks to ensure after reports of communicable diseases. A correct treatment plan needs to be in place. Identifying the source of outbreaks and monitoring for epidemic precautions are also things to be done after this type of report.
Nurses face many ethical dilemmas throughout their career as well. Ethical practice is an important concept in nursing, based on what is considered right or wrong. This is making a choice between two options that are equally unfavorable. Ethical dilemmas are “problems for which more than one choice can be made and the choice is influenced by the values and beliefs of the decision makers” (Henry, et

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