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Ethical dilemmas faced in nursing
Ethics and patient autonomy
Ethical dilemmas facing nurses today
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Ethical dilemmas faced in nursing
Ethics and patient autonomy
Ethical dilemmas facing nurses today
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Nurses who can find agreement between personal and professional ethics will be most successful at maintaining their integrity and moral character. Nurses who are comfortable with their morals and let ethics guide their decisions will be well equipped to provide patient
Upon entrance into the nursing profession, nurses immediately become responsible to uphold the goals, values and ethical principles that guide the profession. With these fundamentals as a framework, the American Nursing Association (ANA) developed specific scope and standards to foster competent nursing practice. The scope and standards of practice do not direct a nurse on how to perform specific functions or tasks, however; it does provide a framework for exemplary practice. The ANA scope and standards affects daily nursing practice by providing a better understanding of parameters of scope, preparing the nurse for ethical challenges presented in the healthcare environment and reaffirming the nurse’s commitment to the profession and to society.
Amidst a whirlwind of change, nurses continue their roles as competent, honorable professionals. A relatively new issue, cultural integrity, correlates with the Code regarding “treatment of the human response.” The American Nurses Association’s “Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements”, also called the Code, highlights nurses’ consensus on professional principles. Nursing ethics guide how practitioners treat their patients and peers. Sensitivity to individual societal, familial and cultural background plays an important role in organizational integrity.
In this discussion, I will be identifying the nine provisions of the American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics for Nurses. Furthermore, I will describe each provision in my own words. According to the American Nurses Association (2015), the Code of Ethics was established to be a guide for “carrying out nursing responsibilities in a manner consistent with quality in nursing care and the ethical obligations of the profession”. In my own words, I believe that the ANA Code of Ethics can be described as an ethical network of values and obligations that nurses must abide by to protect the public and produce the best quality care. In total, there are nine provisions found within the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses.
Ethics serve as a guide for moral and ethical conduct and thus treat people with dignity, respect and uniqueness regardless of age, sex, color or religion. Also adhere to their job description and within the nation’s healthcare workforce. Surveys from several nursing specializations reported that there is no differences in
Ethics Ethics are one of the key components that shape the nursing profession. The American Nursing Association clearly outlines a code of ethics that all practicing nurses must follow in an effort to provide patient-centered care. However, when there isn’t an apparent right answer or personal biases influence the decision-making process an ethical dilemma will inevitably arise. A group of ethical principles is in place to guide nurses in achieving logical resolutions while sustaining a moral integrity in the communities they serve.
Description of an Ethical Dilemma According to Masters (2015), “An ethical dilemma is a situation in which an individual is compelled to make a choice between two actions that will affect the well-being of a sentient being, and both actions can be reasonably justified as being good, neither actions is readily justifiable as good, or the goodness of the actions is uncertain” (p. 129). In practice, nurses are continually faced with varying ethical issues and dilemmas. When making day-to-day decision nurses must rely on their critical thinking skills to aid in their decision-making (Masters, 2015). Ethical decisions originate from well thought out findings constructed from the following variables: personal and professional values, competencies,
Ethical principles are sets of moral principles that nurses have to uphold throughout their nursing career and breach of any of these principles will result in punishment by law. Nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas in clinical practice and research. Examples of moral issues that nurses encounter in contemporary nursing practice and research include but not limited to: refusal of treatment,
Moral Distress: In 1984, Andrew Jameton defined “moral distress” as a phenomenon in which one knows the right action to take, but is constrained from taking it.1There are many causes of moral distress causes and how it is manifested and it can lead to low morale among staff and in some instances can cause employees to quit their job or change their careers. Moral distress has been identified among nearly all healthcare professionals, but most studies have focused on nursing, as it was first recognized among nurses. Moral distress occurs when the healthcare professional comes across a situation where they are forced to choose between what the healthcare provider is best for the patient, but that conflicts with the healthcare organization, the
Nursing is a multidimensional profession, and nurses themselves are continuously faced with confronting a variety of ethical dilemmas within their practice each and every day. These dilemmas can arise from situations involving colleges, governing parties, clients or the family of clients. It can be difficult to differentiate morality from ethics, as they both go hand in hand. Morals involve the principles of what an individual believes is right or wrong, and depicts how they factor what is good or bad (Burkhardt, Nathaniel & Walton, 2014). On the other hand, ethics is a moral principle where an individual uses thought processing and decision making to gauge a situation (Burkhardt, Nathaniel & Walton, 2014).).
All nurses should take positive actions to help their patients and to have the desire to do good. On the other hand, nonmaleficence is the core of the nursing ethics and it revolves around the idea that nurses have to remain competent in their field as to avoid causing injury or harm to patients. Nonmaleficence also requires all health care professionals to report any suspected abuse. The last ethical principle is justice. This ethical principle revolves around the idea that all patients must be treated equally and fairly.
Nurses are able to provide emotional support to patients and families, while understanding
Utilitarianism and Deontology are two major ethical theories that influence nursing practice. Utilitarian principles of promoting the greatest good for the greatest amount of people parallels the nursing tenet of beneficence. Deontological principles of treating individuals with dignity, and promoting the well-being of the individual parallels the nursing tenet of non-maleficence. Utilitarian and Deontological principles can be utilized to resolve ethical dilemmas that arise in the nursing profession. The purpose of this paper is to define utilitarianism and deontology, discuss the similarities and differences between the two, and to address an ethical dilemma utilizing utilitarian and deontological principles.
Introduction Advance practice nurses are role are listed in literature and on the job but the truth is that it does not fall into a perfect world and everything goes as what is on paper. The job description and literature are guidelines for which advance nurses should try and follow the best way they can, but there are many circumstances that do not fall just as the book mention it would. People are not robot so you never can tell how exactly a patient is going to react. However, guidelines are there for a reason.
In this time of sensational change, the issue of disregarding morals or qualities to accomplish here and now objectives emerges. Training foundations are influenced by this issue, too. It is now realized that ethical qualities start to create in the family and in the establishments in which formal instruction is given. Managing individuals, nursing depends on moral applications and values by nature.