...Abstract Nursing is a profession focused on assisting individuals, families, and communities in attaining, maintaining, and recovering optimal health and functioning. Modern definitions of nursing define it as a science and an art that focuses on promoting quality of life as defined by persons and families, throughout their life experiences from birth to care at the end of life. In nursing, ethical issues arise daily. There are issues such as death, dying, birth, abortion, genetics, quality of life, and general human rights. The legal system and ethical system overlap in most situations. Every patient contact can produce a legal or ethical situation. Nursing Ethics According to Aiken (2004) “Ethics is the discipline that deals with rightness and wrongness of actions”. The goal is similar to that of the legal system except that in most cases there is no system of enforcement or ethical penalties. “General ethics is the consideration of the morality of human acts in general”. (Fitzpatrick 2002) The Nursing Code of Ethics began in 1893 with the "Nightingale Pledge" which was patterned after the Hippocratic Oath in medicine, and is understood as the first code of nursing ethics. Nursing ethics is a branch of applied ethics that concerns itself with activities in the field of nursing. Nursing ethics shares many principles with medical ethics, such as beneficence, non- maleficence and respect for autonomy. It can be distinguished by its emphasis...
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...Nursing Ethics Shannon Gonnelly Grand Canyon University: NRS-437V July 02, 2016 Nursing Ethics Numerous individuals see the nursing profession as an honorable profession with high ethical standards. When a nurse graduates from college they take the Florence Nightingale Pledge, which implies they have a moral obligation to their patients (American Nurses Association, 2015). Nurses additionally take after a Code of Ethics that gives them a guide to what their obligations are in providing quality of care to patients and what their ethical commitments are (American Nurses Association, 2015). Despite the fact that there is a Code of Ethics, nurses still face numerous predicaments when caring for their patients. This paper will examine the author's moral compass, nursing philosophy, and ethical dilemmas. Author’s Moral Compass The author's moral compass has high confidence in God and follows the Nurses Code of Ethics. The author's energy to be a nurse began at just ten years old. The author has always wanted to take care of the elderly and trusts that nobody should have to die alone. The author believes that nursing was a calling from God, and this is what spurred the author to become a nurse. The author had difficulties becoming a nurse due to already having one child while being pregnant with another. However, the calling to be a nurse was sufficiently high enough to overcome the difficulties. For instance, the author had a four-year-old daughter and had only four weeks...
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...of 14 NURSING LAW AND ETHICS JURIS OUTLINE ( Atty. Aleth Joyce T. Cubacub) Chapter 1- Overview Nursing Profession - Process of constant change - Etymological perspective it comes from the Latin word meaning NUTRIX or nourish Nursing - Art, a science and a social science - Being an art, deals with skills that require dexterity and proficiency - Science : systematic and well-defined body of knowledge which utilizes scientific methods and procedures in the application of nursing process - Social Science: primordial interest is man whether well or sick - It is involved in total quality patient care when giving the patient prescribed medication or treatments - Primary focus is the individual’s response to health related problems FOUR FUNDAMENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF NURSING a. Promote health b. Prevent illness c. Restore health and d. To alleviate sufferings - Noble goal to promote the harmonious or symphonic interaction between men and their environment CHARACTERISTICS OF NURSING a. Nursing is caring b. Involves close, personal contact with the recipient of care; c. Concerned services ( humans as physiological, psychological and sociological organisms) d. Committed to personalized services regardless of color, creed or social or economic status e. Committed to promoting individual, family , community and national health goals f. Committed to involvement in ethical, legal and political issues in the delivery of health care NURSING PROCESS - Use nurse process as a tool in nursing practice...
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...Introduction Ethics are the principles that guide an individual, group, or profession in conduct and also it is a theory that analyses the differences between right and wrong. Nurses are not only expected to comply to their professional morals and values, but are also encouraged to comply to their own personal ethics as well. The code of ethics (ANA 2001) advises nurses on ethical and legal responsibility to their own patients, as well as the community in which they serve. In today's health care system nurses are faced with many ethical issues in their daily task and they have to make clear and logical ethical choices of their own. These ethical choices are generally inspired by ethical doctrines that include beneficence, confidentiality, autonomy, fidelity, veracity, and other (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2008, p53). Nursing is a noble profession and I enjoy most about being a nurse is simply caring, helping and nurturing people. In addition, I also thank God for giving me this opportunity to make a difference in someone's life, whether that is done by providing care, teaching, or even supporting a family. Personal, cultural and spiritual Values According to the International Council of Nurses (ICN), a nurse's primary responsibility is to attend their patients, and be able to respect the patient's customs, values, beliefs, and rights. In addition, nurses should choose to extend their education because they are held accountable for their own practice. Nurses should practice cooperating...
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...Ethics in Nursing Practice, Values and Decision Making Name Name of College Abstract Nurses work with a wide range of patients, and each patient presents their own economic, social and cultural differences. While nurses work to provide care for the sick, injured and dying, they are always working within the boundaries of their professional codes of ethics. The nursing code of ethics is more than laws and common etiquette, and upholding the code of ethics is understood and agreed upon by people in the nursing profession. The two kinds of ethical theories discussed most in nursing are consequentialist and nonconsequentialist theories. By examining these two theories, nurses are able to evaluate the principle of confidentiality and how to apply the principle within reasonable limits. Further understanding of these normative theories gives nurses the abilities to evaluate conflict avoidance and resolution. As nurses further navigate the world of ethics, they discover how the code of ethics is influenced by a person’s culture, and they acquire a solid foundation for current ethical decision-making models used in their industry. Ethics in Nursing Practice, Values and Decision Making Nurses who take care of patients are encouraged to do so with a certain level of politeness. Other than being polite, nurses are required to be skilled, and they must follow the laws which govern them in their field of practice. Between all of the skills, politeness and laws...
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...Nursing Ethics Tomi MS Grand Canyon University NRS 437 V December 22, 2013 Personal Nursing Ethics As per the Code of Ethics every nurse is expected to practice with compassion and respect the dignity and uniqueness of every person without considering their socio economic status or disease condition. We all have our own values and beliefs as normal human beings. But when it comes to nursing profession, patient is the main focus and nurses are committed to give care that is not biased or based on nurse's own personal beliefs .A person's behavior is greatly impacted by his culture, personal experiences, education, parental behaviors and relationships. Our experiences, knowledge, values, beliefs, perceptions and judgment contribute to our personal philosophy. This personal philosophy guides every individuals behaviors and stands as an origin of encouragement. A nurse should keep in mind that every single person is unique and everyone’s personal philosophy influences his or her view of health. So it is important for a nurse to have an awareness of factors influencing his or her own worldview and develop a moral compass (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2008). Professional Moral Compass Moral compass is a natural feeling that makes people know what is right and wrong and how they should behave. Every human being has his own moral compass that is primarily formed by parental interactions and influences. Moral compass is driven by a person's beliefs, ambitions, values and contentment...
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...Ethics of Nurses Jessica Voorhees HCA322 Eugene Elliott January 14, 2013 Ethics of Nurses The Code of Ethics was designed as a measuring stick for healthcare workers to compare their actions against. “The Code of Ethics also incorporates standards of ethical behavior governing individual behavior, particularly when that conduct directly relates to the role and identity of the healthcare executive.” (A.C.H.E., 2012). Today’s health care system and its professionals are receiving ever-growing pressure to make practical effort to ensure that the quality of patient care available is provided. “The fundamental objectives of the healthcare management profession are to maintain or enhance the overall quality of life, dignity and well-being of every individual needing healthcare service and to create a more equitable, accessible, effective and efficient healthcare system.” (A.C.H.E). There are many laws that have been implemented in today’s world to ensure that this is accomplished. “They are designed to prevent harm to others while protecting the rights of individuals.” (Pogzar, 2012, pg.196). Although in general most apply and affect everyone in our society, some affect those in the health care professions more. The Code of Ethics helps to keep personal feelings from entering into medical advise by the medical professional. Common ethics in a clinical setting are well known such negligence. Nurses are responsible for any negligence. “It is the...
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...REFLECTION PAPER ON ETHICS OF NURSING Nurses are in the forefront when it comes to caring for patients, therefore during nursing school they must be warned about a lot of ethical and legal issues that will affect how the job is carried out. In today’s healthcare, there is an ethical gap between what is ethical and what is desirable for profit, and too often ethics is sacrificed for profit. Healthcare organization has become a big time business today and therefore has result in the restructuring of healthcare into a managed care. As a result of this above reason, an ethical gap is always encountered almost on daily basis. As shown in this case study, Mary and John, along with their daughter Martha, have demonstrated how religion, culture, legal, and ethical issues can easily be encountered in the healthcare arena. Honestly until now, I have never considered ethical issues to be of a grave concern in nursing practice; nor given any deep thought to ethical matters when dealing with patient with different background. Prior to now, most cases relating to patient’s background or ethical issues has been resolved easily. I think why these have been easily resolved is because patients are more accommodating and accepting. I think all human races have this general background of being accepting of their fellow human beings. However, some cultural groups are more accepting than others depending on their level of understanding and belief. I think that as from this...
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...Fidelia Edoziem West Coast University Dr Beverly Quaye 12/21/2013 Ethics in Nursing In healthcare, ethical dilemmas arise primarily because of the nature of the work, the nurse-patient relationship and the responsibility of the nurses for the well-being of vulnerable populations, such as the older adult (Beauchamp, 1990). The nurse-patient relationship is where the nurse helps a patient and family go through a stressful situation with compassion and care. Nursing is committed to the health and quality of life of the individual, family, community and profession. Nursing professionals engaged in promotion, prevention, recovery and rehabilitation, with autonomy and in accordance with ethical and legal issues (Pinch & Haddad, 2008). Nursing professionals participated as member of the health team, the actions aiming to meet the health needs of the population and defense of the principles of public health and environmental policies that ensure universal access to health services, comprehensive assistance, resolution, preserving the autonomy of individuals, community participation, prioritization and political and administrative decentralization of health services. The nursing professionals respect life, dignity and human rights in all of their dimensions. The nursing professional has operations responsible for the promotion of the human being in its entirety, in accordance with the principles of ethics and bioethics (Beauchamp, 1990). Case Study At 85, Mrs...
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...congruent care are the key factors for effective and excellent nursing care (Srivastava, 2007). However, health care provider’s roles and responsibilities in meeting health care needs of the clients in consideration to cultural perspective and diversity are getting more challenging and complicated due to increased number of people from a group of multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society, which, in turn requires health care providers to acknowledge and understand variations of cultural healthcare beliefs, values and practices. Transcultural nursing is essential in the process of nursing care because of the different factors, which includes increasing diversity and multicultural identities, emergent use of health care equipment that occasionally dispute the cultural ethics and beliefs of the clients and a rise in feminism and gender issues (Andrews &ump; Boyle, 2008). Maier-Lorentz (2008) states that the fundamental aspect of healthcare is transcultural nursing since culturally competent nursing care help guarantee patient satisfactions and health beneficial outcome. According to the Royal College of Nursing (2009), providing care with respect to health and illness based on the expectations of the people’s values, beliefs and practices corresponding with culture is the focal point of transcultural care. Influenced by the principles and theories of transcultural nursing, the author defines transcultural nursing as a discipline of culturally care for individuals, families, groups...
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...Ethics in the Nursing Field Nursing is a highly stressful and challenging position. Not every individual can be a nurse. To select this career as your personal choice requires a deep connection with humanity as well as the ability to disconnect in order to choose wisely and make ethical decisions in any given situation. As a nurse you are expected to act duty and entitlement based with all patients regardless of one’s personal opinion. A nurse has undeviating contact on a daily basis with many stages of sick patients. The simplicity of an ethical business behavior does not seem as reasonable when you are faced with an un-diagnosable child and you want dearly to give the parents a breath of hope when it isn’t the correct thing to do or say. When you are in an ethical dilemma, there is a very thin line that you should not cross and your morals and values have to take place in your judgment. Nurses have to abide by standards of medicine and must be fully professional at all times in order to not have a comment taken out of content which may be the loss of the nursing license for such individual. I was in a predicament at one point in my nursing career where there was this child that would come back into the emergency room weekly with mental outbursts. This unfortunate situation was devastating for the mother as anyone that has a child could understand. This fragile looking boy could go from kind to completely uncontrollable in less than one minute. His records...
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...Name: Lincy Nedumackal Class: HLT-362V Due Date: 12/22/13 STUDY QUESTIONS 1. The sample size was 392 (N = 392) as indicated in the “Introduction.” 2. In Table 1, the c² = 6.45 for the Race of Child. 3). Four null hypotheses were accepted since four c² values were not significant, as indicated in Table 1. No significant results indicate that the null hypotheses are supported or accepted as an accurate reflection of the results of the study. 4. The c² = 21.95 for Marital Status (%): Married/living with partner or Living alone. The symbol next to this c² value indicates that it is statistically significant at p ≤ .001. If alpha (α) = 0.05 for this study, then p is less than α indicates that the c² value is statistically signifi cant. 5. No, p ≤ .001 has a greater significance than p ≤ .05, since the smaller the p value, the more significant the findings. Thus, p ≤ .05 is not as significant as at p ≤ .001. 6. Mean household income has a greater statistically significant value because it is reported significant at p ≤ .001, whereas Education (of adult) is reported significant at p ≤ .05. The smaller the p value, the more significant the findings. 7. Yes, Mean household income is also significant at p ≤ .05, since p ≤ .001 has a greater significance than p ≤ .05. What is significant at p ≤ .001 is also significant at p ≤ .05. 8). There is no difference in Mean household income among the three groups determined by levels of insurance (uninsured, Medicaid-enrolled...
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...My Nursing Ethic, Ethical Compassion in Nursing Grand Canyon University: NRS-437V 4/25/2013 1. What personal, cultural, and spiritual values contribute to your worldview and philosophy of nursing? How do these values shape or influence your nursing practice? The role played by the nurse professional is highly consequential to the health outcomes experiences by patients. This means that the nursing profession must be highly regulated by clearly defined and positively reinforced ethical provisions. These provisions are given by the ANA Nursing Code of Ethics and, in my personal experiences, are imperative as a way of dictating how we, as professionals, are expected to engage patients, required to relate to colleagues and trained to respect human dignity. This connection between ethicality and treatment quality contributes both to my personal worldview and to the broader field of nursing. With specific reference to my experiences in the NICU and maternity wards, this connection takes on particular importance. Here, quality outcomes mean sound, healthy births, the minimization of risk or pain for the mother and provision of an excellent environment within which to bring a newborn into the world. The link between achieving these outcomes and behaving in an ethical manner is inextricable. My cultural background in particular helps give a strong foundation to my actual practice in the field. In my upbringing and family background, there are few more sacred responsibilities...
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...Dilemmas and D'Legals: Ethics and Law in Nursing Marsha Brice, Barbara Gong, Holly Lavely, Lindsey Talbot, Loveda Turnage NUR/391 August 6, 2012 Esther Van Baren Dilemmas and D'Legals: Ethics and Law in Nursing Every day nurses are confronted with situations that lead them to question their ethics and the legal duties of their profession. Both dilemmas are presented for examination and discussion in this class via two scenarios. In the first case scenario, the family of a victim of a hemorrhagic stroke must decide what measures they want the hospital staff to take to either sustain her life or if they want to deny any or all life-saving steps. In this instance, the father and children are at odds in their decision. The next case presents malpractice lawsuit scene where a nurse is called to testify on behalf of the patient against the negligent nurse and hospital. While these situations are vastly different, they share two inherent questions: What is the ethical thing to do? What is the nurse’s legal obligation? Each case study produced different legal questions. In the first case study the family of the patient could not agree on a course of action. There was no advance directive and the patient was not conscious. The husband of the patient in this case is the legal next of kin and is therefore legally responsible for making health care decisions for his wife when she is unable to do so. The children of the patient could challenge their father in court...
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...Running head: MY NURSING ETHIC My Nursing Ethic Grand Canyon University Ethical Decision Making in Health Care NRS-437V July 21, 2011 My Nursing Ethic There are several factors that contribute to who humans truly are as individuals. We are all shaped by our personal experiences, memories, emotions, and knowledge affecting our perceptions, reasoning and judgment of people and situations. The collection of these factors makes up the basis for an individual’s personal ethical philosophy. A personal philosophy, or worldview, guides behaviors and acts as a source of inspiration and motivation. As a nurse, it is essential to consider the client’s worldview as it is the basis for their reality and will have an effect on the view of their health and is necessary in providing a holistic plan of care. In order for the professional nurse to provide such care it is essential to have an awareness of factors influencing his or her own worldview and develop a moral compass (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2008). My Professional Moral Compass According to Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English, a moral compass is, "anything which serves to guide a person’s decisions based on morals or virtues,” (Moral compass, 2011). My personal moral compass is directed by various inspirations, passions, and values that have become essential to my happiness. Family, laughter, integrity, benevolence, honor, loyalty, hard work, service unto others, self-discipline, compassion, and accountability...
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