Nursing is one of the most trusted professions in the community. This means that nurses are trusted to enter into therapeutic relationships that adhere to the concept of patient care physically, mentally and ethically. The therapeutic relationship that is created is built on the professional knowledge and skills of the nurse and the patient trusting in the nurse’s ability to care for them. Professional boundaries are an intricate aspect of a nurse’s daily work. These boundaries are based on trust, respect and the appropriate use of power. Breaches can be classified as boundary crossings, boundary violations or sexual misconduct. Breaches of boundaries lead to violations of a nurse’s professional responsibility. Nurses must maintain these boundaries to ensure patient care can remain within the zone of helpfulness.
Every patient that is admitted to hospital, or seen by a health professional has a right to his or her own privacy, and by ensuring professional boundaries are upheld this basic right can be achieved. According to Levett-Jones and Bourgeois (2011, pp. 237) confidentiality is an obligation made by a professional to respect the information given by a patient to healthcare professional. In today’s society through technology and social networks a patient’s privacy is far more vulnerable than it was in the past. By posting on Facebook anything about a patient or in discussion via internet or email to others a patient’s privacy has been breached and the trust created in a therapeutic relationship is no longer there causing what is known as a boundary crossing. Thompson (2010, pp.26) understands that “At times, boundary crossing may be unintentional”, but emphasizes that this behavior can lead to consequences. Pat...
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Australian Nursing and Midwifery Board, 2006, national competency standards for the registered nurse, 4th edition, Dickson ACT
Baca, M 2011, 'Professional Boundaries and Dual Relationships in Clinical Practice', Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 7, 3, pp. 195-200, viewed 16 May 2011.
Levett-jones, T, and Bourgeois, S, 2011, the clinical placement, 2nd Edn, Elsevier, Chatswood.
Professional boundaries: a guide to the importance of appropriate professional boundaries... reprinted from the Dakota Nurse Connection (Summer 2009, Volume 7, Number 3), with permission by the South Dakota and North Dakota Boards of Nursing' 2010, KBN Connection, 22, pp. 27-29, viewed 15 May 2011.
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Standards are important aspects of nursing that a nurse must learn and implement every day for the rest of their nursing career. These standards provide for a nurse’s competence in the quality of care they deliver to the public. Standards offer a necessary guidance to nurses everywhere in an effort to ensure that people are treated correctly and ethically. Patients expect nurses to have a general knowledge of the medical realm and to know exactly what it is they –as nurses- are responsible for. Nurses need to have a sense of professionalism that enable the patient to feel safe and secure, knowing that a competent person is caring for him. A lack of professionalism does the opposite, making it impossible for a patient to trust or respect the nurse caring for him. Standards of nursing, if utilized correctly, give the nurse that sense of professionalism the patient is expecting. It insures for the safety of the patient and allows the nurse to provide quality health care that is expected of a medical professional.
Nurses everywhere face problems and challenges in practice. Most of the challenges occur due to a struggle with the use of ethical principles in patient care. Ethical principles are “basic and obvious moral truths that guide deliberation and action,” (Burkhardt, Nathaniel, 2014). Ethical principles that are used in nursing practice include autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, veracity, confidentiality, justice, and fidelity. These challenges not only affect them, but the quality of care they provide as well. According to the article, some of the most frequently occurring and most stressful ethical issues were protecting patient rights, autonomy and informed consent to treatment, staffing problems, advanced care planning, and surrogate decision making (Ulrich et. al, 2013). The ethical issue of inadequate staffing conflicts with the principle of non-maleficence.
Professionalism in the workplace in many professions can be simplified into general categories such as neat appearance, interaction with clients, punctuality, general subject knowledge, and likability. In nursing, professionalism encompasses a much more broad and inclusive set of criteria than any other profession. Nurses specifically are held to a higher standard in nearly every part of their job. Nurses are not only expected to uphold what it seen as professional in the aforementioned categories, but they are also expected to promote health, wellbeing, and advocate for patients, but also continually provide the highest standard of care, demonstrate exemplary subject and procedural knowledge, and abide by the Code of ethics set forth by the American Nurses Association. This Code of Ethics includes the complex moral and ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, fidelity, honesty, and integrity.
As a nurse it is our primary job to protect and promote the well being of patients throughout the health care industry. Each nurse has the responsibility to practice faithfully and to uphold all ethical values. These values are outlined and regulated by two very important entities, The Nursing Practice Acts and the Texas Board of Nursing. Nursing Practice Acts, are specific laws in each state that define a nurse’s scope of practice. These acts were first established in 1909 with the purpose of protecting public health, safety, and welfare. Their purpose is to provide rules and regulations that will protect society from unsafe and unqualified nurses. Nursing professionalism is rooted in the ethics and ...
According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), (2010) “the nurse promotes, advocates for and strives to protect the health, safety and rights of the patient” (p. 6). Nursing responsibilities should be acted upon at the highest standard and must be based on legal and ethical obligations. Healthcare provider’s perception and judgment of the patient’s well being, as well as taking into account the rights of the patient in every action, is one of the key elements in nursing practice. International Council of Nurses (ICN) (2006) states “The nurse at all times maintains standards of personal conduct which reflect well on the profession and enhance public confidence” (p. 3).
Section 5.4, which is the preservation of integrity, suggests that nurses will inevitably have to deal with threats to their moral or professional integrity at some point in their careers. Nurses should do their best to maintain professional integrity when met with adversity, weather it be from uncooperative issuance companies, an unsound work environment, or from the patients themselves. When working in an unsound or unsafe work environment that violates law or the ANA code of ethics nurses must go through the proper channels to fix the problem. If a nurse feels that a procedure or treatment their patient is having conflicts with his or her own moral integrity and they cannot participate, the nurse must report they unwilling to tr...
Every patient that is admitted to hospital, or seen by a health professional has a right to his or her own privacy, and it is through ensuring professional boundaries are upheld that this basic right can be achieved. According to Levett-Jones and Bourgeois (2011, pp. 237) confidentiality is an obligation made by a professional to respect the information given by a patient to healthcare professional. In this modern age, privacy can be hard as society relies on technology as a form of communication, allowing for information to be more readily available. However, by posting on Facebook about a patient or informing a friend, the trust created in a therapeutic relationship is breach and is called a boundary crossing. Thompson (2010, pp.26) understands that “At times, boundary crossing may be unintentional, but emphasizes th...
Social media is affecting all spheres of life and no profession is left untouched by the impact of social media and nursing profession is no exception. Nobody can deny the benefits of social media for the profession of nursing yet its disadvantages for the registered nurses and student nurses during clinical practice cannot be ignored. “Social media can be defined as the constellation of internet-based tools that help a user to connect, collaborate, and communicate with others in real time” (Ressler & Glazer, 2010). Social media is growing at a very rapid rate and is now the mainstream communication method for most of the global population (http://www.internetworldstats.com/facebook.htm). It has brought a tremendous revolution in communication and disseminating information to nurses round the world.
Restraint of trade is becoming a more commonplace as nurse practitioners (NPs) attempt to expand or work within their full scope of practice (Horton, 2013). In the health system, many NPs are being restricted by physicians to oversee patients, as well as restricting the mileage with which one can collaborate with a physician. This affect patient’s care and productivity. The issue with restraint of trade is that physicians are not wanting to collaboration with NPs and the ones who do collaborate do so to meet the legal requirement only on paper. Issues with restraint of trade are that physicians are afraid NPs are going to take away their work, their income and patients (Horton, 2013). In true view, collaboration is working together with nurse
Hood, J. (2010). Conceptual bases of professional nursing. (7th ed. ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Nursing may be seen as very independent work even though there will be situations that will require others. Friendships may be formed; however, to have professional interactions is something that is not always followed. In terms of patient confidentiality, we may not realize that a HIPPA violation has occurred due to friendly conversation with coworkers. If a patient were to overhear their nurse discussing their information in an unprofessional manner then it may cause issues with a patient’s dignity and their rights. If a patient’s right is violated then it can lead to a patient’s mistrust in their caregiver, leading to mistrust in the facilities, and can end with a patient’s health being compromised. The patient is the reason for this career; if the needs of the patient are being unmet or violated then the purpose of our occupation will be unsuccessful and
The American Nurses Association created guidelines for the profession including, a set clear rules to be followed by individuals within the profession, Code of Ethics for Nurses. Written in 1893, by Lystra Gretter, and adopted by the ANA in 1926, The Code of Ethics for Nurses details the role metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics have within the field (ANA, 2015). Moral obligation for an individual differs within professions than it does within an individual’s personal life, so the code of ethics was written to establish rules within the profession. The moral obligation to provide quality care include the fundamental principles of respect for persons, integrity, autonomy, advocacy, accountability, beneficence, and non-maleficence. The document itself contains nine provisions with subtext, all of which cannot be addressed within this paper however, core principals related to the ethical responsibilities nurses have will be
In conclusion, there are numerous legal and ethical issues apparent in the nursing practice. Nurses should study and be as informed as they can with ethics and legality within their field in order to ensure no mistakes occur. Ethical issues vary based on patient’s views, religion, and environment. Nurses are influenced by these same views, but most of the time they are not the same as the patients. As a nurse we must learn to put the care of our patients and their beliefs, rights, and wishes before our own personal
Professionalism as I would define, is following facility guidelines and adhering to protocols. An act of professionalism consists of these following characteristics; “human dignity, truth, integrity, excellence, knowledge of duty, following proper work ethics, and social responsibility” (Whiteside 135-136). For this term paper, I chose to include professionalism examples in healthcare. The roles of a care-taker and a nurse hold many examples that pertains to professionalism in the workplace.
According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), the nursing profession is known as the most trusted profession in America. Nurses are in the forefront of improving the lives of many individuals. Nurses have this privilege by embodying the five core values of professional nursing, which includes: human dignity, integrity, autonomy, altruism, and social justice (Fahrenwald et al., 2005). Integrating these values into the nursing profession is how nurses provide patients with the quality care that they deserve, while being a competent and accountable member of the healthcare team. In this paper, I will be discussing the importance of professionalism in nursing, the risks of poor communication in the health care field, the significance of healthy work environments, and will be describing the strategies needed to mitigate horizontal violence when engaging in crucial conversations.