Ethical Issues In Nursing Essay

Nursing requires a wide range of skills, where one must understand ways of knowing, ethical issues, conditions of negligence and privacy. This knowledge is essential when comprehending what a nurse is to do in difficult situations, assisting in decision making and help in distinguishing the right from wrong. Bioethical principles aid with identifying and acknowledging ethnical issues raised in the nursing field. One must comprehend the condition of negligence and breach of privacy guidelines in order to meet current standards and legislation.

Ways of Knowing

When making decisions a nurse must consider the ‘ways of knowing’. These ways influence the individual decision making and helps to outline what is right. The fundamental ways are; empirics,

Instead she breached Jason’s privacy by writing a Facebook© post regarding his situation. This is an inappropriate use of personal knowledge especially when caring for a patient.

Ethics is the ‘moral component’ (Carper 1978, p.20) of knowledge. It involves an ethical judgement, evaluating the consequence of action and making the right decision at the right time. ‘It includes all voluntary actions…to the judgement of right and wrong’ (Carper 1978, p.20). Gemma did not respect Jason’s privacy; ethically she made the wrong judgement in writing the public post about the patient. This is not adhering to privacy guidelines as no permission was given to Gemma to share his information publicly.

The ‘ways of knowing’; empirics, aesthetics, personal knowing and ethics, allows one to thoroughly understand the way an individual may think and feel, incorporating it into nursing care. Within the case study, Gemma should have used her ‘knowings’ to display a clearer understanding of the science and art of nursing, demonstrate empathy and compassion towards the patient and to identify the right from wrong.

2. Ethical

119). When referring to Gemma, the National Competency Standards for the Registered Nurse 2013 clearly state that a nurse is to recognise ‘the responsibility to prevent harm’ (2013, p. 2) and ‘recognises and responds appropriately to unsafe or unprofessional practice’ (2013, p. 2). Gemma did not adhere to the standards as she recognised the harm of removing the TED stocking but did not provide ‘appropriate information within the nurse’s scope of practice to individual..’ (2013, p. 3) to prevent harm or follow up the ‘incidents of unsafe practice’ (2013, p. 3) therefore a breach of duty of care can be