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why is nursing ethics important
ethical dilemmas in the healthcare workplace
why is nursing ethics important
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if you fail to take action to support the welfare of the recipient, you are not fulfilling the principle of beneficence. Therefore, it is crucial to consider both principles when carrying out any task, especially in fields such as healthcare and social work where the well-being of others is at stake.
Ethics in Nursing Practice (2002) also acknowledges that the ethical issues encountered by nurses in providing patient care are only just beginning to be identified and studied empirically. The fundamental components of nurses' ethical practices and the factors that influence these practices in the 21st century will require careful examination in the years to come. Furthermore, the resources that nurses utilize to address ethical issues in their practices, as well as their educational and institutional requirements for maintaining ethical practices, must be investigated.
Staff should be considered as the reality of healthcare. Sometimes they behave childishly and other times inhumanely. However, it is their duty to handle situations using their knowledge, skills, and experiences. Muhammad Javed has been suffering from mental health issues for the past three years and was admitted two months ago. He was mentally ill and extremely frustrated. Unfortunately, the staff resorted to physical violence to administer his medications. This method of dealing with patients is morally, legally, and religiously unethical. The staff should focus on helping patients recover, not making them sicker.
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.
The first provision of the American Nurses Association’s (ANA) “Code of Ethics” states, “ The nurse, in all professional relationships, practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth and uniqueness of every individual, unrestricted by considerations of social or economic status, personal attributes, or the nature of health problems.” The second provision states, “The nurse’s primary commitment is the patient, whether the patient is an individual, family, group, or community” (Fowler, 2010). As nurses we need to respect the autonomy and allow for the patient to express their choices and concerns. We also need to provide them with support by giving them knowledge and understanding so they
The focus of this model is for leadership to empower staff members with opportunities, information, support, and resources to facilitate engaged relationships that, in the long run, will facilitate staff in empowering patients by providing opportunities, support, information, and resources to reflect on their well-being. Opportunities being referred to in this model are training opportunities; training trauma-informed care. The model also requires that information be provided to increase understanding that behaviours such as self-harm in patients, can be as a result of a neurobiological response to trauma. In this way, the model follows patient centred care since it looks at the patients’ needs for effective treatment. Information about patient preferences is utilized to come up with a comprehensive list of physical, emotional, and cognitive responses to stress. The list focuses on triggers that can cause stress, calming activities and past experiences with restraint and seclusion. This follows quality improvement competency since patient data analysis enables the staff to come up with a better way to treat them. The model also emphasizes on teamwork by enhancing support. The theme of support refers to a collaboration between the staff and the leadership. Collaboration is achieved in schedule meeting and during shifts. There’s also the need for availability of patient’s
This is counterproductive towards the patients’ own recovery from the ward to a normal life
The Code of Ethics for Nurses was created to be a guide for nurses to perform their duties in a way that is abiding with the ethical responsibilities of the nursing profession and quality in nursing care. The Code of Ethics has excellent guidelines for how nurses should behave, however; these parameters are not specific. They do not identify what is right and wrong, leaving nurses having to ultimately make that decision. Ethics in nursing involves individual interpretation based on personal morals and values. Nursing professionals have the ethical accountability to be altruistic, meaning a nurse who cares for patients without self-interest. This results in a nurse functioning as a patient advocate, making decisions that are in the best interest of the patient and practicing sound nursing ethics.
Before Nightingale, nurses were lower class citizens that were alcoholics or prostitutes with no to a little education. Florence Nightingale realized that nurses ought to have some education in caring for others and be of a higher class. In 1860, she opened the first nursing school in London that did not accept prostitutes and alcoholics. To signify Nightingale’s view of nursing, Lystra Gretter composed a Hippocratic Oath for nurses called the Nightingale pledge.
The Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretative Statements (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2015) serves as a guide for nurses in making ethical decisions in their daily practice. While all nurses are called to put this code into action, the use of leadership skills in nursing is what sets apart superior leaders from the average. For example, all nurses have an ethical obligation to care for a patient; however, a nurse utilizing ethical principles and leadership skills jointly, investigates further into what the underlying structures are that impact patient care and safety (Grande, 2015). Ethical principles that apply to my practice on the mission field and in parish nursing are similar to those in any practice. Autonomy, beneficence,
The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos, which means character (1). Being moral always fills a nurse with morals respects, guidelines of good judgment and expert lead. There are three essential obligations for nurses, among many other which are the duty of autonomy, confidentiality, and obligation of care to all patients (2). There are professional duties with becoming distinctly legitimate obligations if any law and policies are ruptured in between professional practice. In 2001, a review found that there was an apparent requirement for more guidance on moral predicaments inside the medical professionals, subsequent to expanding legal cases and open request (3). Medical attendants ought to withstand to regulatory law and statutory law while managing the nursing practice.
According to Chaloner (2007) states that Ethics is about good and bad, where nurses are fully trained to provide quality care to the patient and raises the value of ethics by being medical centred and having emotional impact in treatment and sometimes the patient refuses nursing care resulting as bad (p22-46). To relate ethics successfully, nurse’s thinking abilities and beliefs that support ethical enquiry such as autonomy, non-maleficence and beneficence makes care plan on ways for decision making in patient care. Example, the moral values which we gain from childhood like honesty, mutual trust, respecting, and treating others fairly are used in having therapeutic nurse to client relationship.
...ctors? Besides, if a hospital works like this , doctors should equip with medical ethics such as, doctor should equip with autonomy of the individual, professional justice ,beneficence to everyone and non maleficent. Otherwise, it loss of meaning of this jobs. It is believed that most of the healthcare staff are enthusiastic. However, there are so many annoying social activities staff should attend but that is not include in their working scope.(醫者心) Therefore, even healthcare staff full of conscientious however it scattered the attention or energy by the social activities. Thus the quality of health care gradually decrease.(irrational non humanized)
Thompson, I. E., Melia, K. M., & Boyd, K. M. (2006). Nursing Ethics: Churchill Livingstone Elsevier.
One of the most poignant statements that I have heard during my tenure in nursing school is that “Nurses are often the first person that an infant sees at birth and the last person that a patient sees upon death.” Nurses have contact with patients recurrently along this continuum of life, now more than ever. This is due to the world’s aging population and the correlating factor of higher patient acuity (Larson, 2013). This frequent and close contact with nurses has fostered a sense of trustworthiness in the minds of U.S. citizens. This is evidenced by a recent Gallup Poll which listed nurses as the most honest and ethical professionals in America (www.galluppoll.com, 2015). Nurses have the challenging task of providing this trust-worthy,
Ethics is defined as moral principles that govern a persons or a group’s behavior, ethical principles apply to both personal and professional relationships (Webster, 2015). The field of nursing is a profession that has been highly regarded and respected in society. Most nurses enter the profession in order to utilize their clinical skills to help others in their time of need. Those in failing health rely on nurses to care for them in their most vulnerable states, and expect a level of compassion and humanity while receiving care. Nurses have an ethical responsibility to their patients, clients, and their community. Compassion, empathy, and integrity are staple characteristics that nurses possess that allow them to successfully perform their
The nursing code of ethics has a very standard definition. It is the base on how nurses should guide themselves in conduct by making the right decision regarding ethical issues. According to the National Student Nurses Association “students of nursing have a responsibility to society in learning the academic theory and clinical skills needed to provide nursing care” (2003). In the clinical setting nurses have a lot of responsibilities while caring for an ill patient, they have the obligation to practice their profession with compassion, love, and respect the uniqueness of each patient, as nurses we are not supposed to deny care to a patient because of their economic status, their skin color, race, or the nature of health problems, we are here to help the people in need in particular those of susceptible populations. The NSNA states that the code of conduct is based on an understanding that to practice nursing as a student is an agreement that trust and honesty is depended on us by society. The announcement of the code provided direction for the nursing student in the personal development of an ethical foundation and not limited to the academic or clinical environment but can assist in the holistic development of a person. (National Student Nurses Association, 2003)
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