Ethical dilemmas, also known as a moral dilemma, is a situation in which there is a choice between two options, neither of which resolves the situation completely. In other words, both options will result in negative results based on society and/or personal guidelines. Labor and delivery nurses are often confronted with ethical dilemmas in practice. To help student nurses prepare for this eventuality, nursing programs do their best to incorporate education about ethics and professionalism into courses. This introduction to ethics in nursing school also assists future nurses to begin recognizing and managing their own personal values in a way that can help guide them in resolving ethical conflicts they will encounter throughout their professional careers. During my labor and delivery clinical rotation, I interviewed several L&D nurses anonymously, asking them about ethical dilemmas they have encountered in the past. I received many interesting responses. One dilemma mentioned …show more content…
One nurse stated "it's tough to educate your client when it could be at the expense of your job." There are times when the OBGYN and/or client makes a decision for interventions (pitocin, artificial rupture of membranes, or c-section) that the nurse may not feel is in the best interest of the client. Some L&D nurses believe this to be related to convenience of the doctor, for example, doing a cesarean in order to "make it to a golf game on time." Doctor's may tell the parent's to be the cesarean is for failure to progress...when maybe it is actually failure to progress fast enough for doctor convenience. The ethical dilemma here includes the question...does the L&D nurse speak up by educating the client on the risks and benefits, or just go along with the