Military Nurse’s Dilemma Chi Tiet University of Michigan - Flint

Nurses are a group of professionals who faces a variety of ethical dilemmas while working. Therefore, these dilemmas cannot only impact on their personalities but also affect their patients. However, ethical dilemmas are argumentative and difficult to deal with, so there is no “right” or “wrong” answer for them. In a military nurse’s dilemma, a military RN is ordered to force feeding a terrorist prisoner while he is undergoing interrogation, and the prisoner is on a hunger strike protesting. The nurse is torn, but fearing of reprisal if orders are disobeyed, so the nurse is appalled at the over-riding a patient’s wish by force feeding him agains his wish. According to the case scenario, this is an ethical dilemmas because there is a choice between two equally appealing mutually exclusive choices that is shown as the nurse’s awe while against the prisoner’s wish among of the fear of reprisal if disobeying orders. The RN is working in military, so obeying orders is the most important rules in where the nurse practices. Therefore, the nurse notes that a moral distress arise while following the healthcare members’s decisions which are considered as