By uniting behind this promise in large numbers, nurses and other health professionals are sending a strong message to policymakers, health care associations, and the American public that future attempts to engage health professionals to design, investigate, or enforce practices that lead to serious physical or mental abuse will not be tolerated. The pledge also serves as a statement of support for medical professionals who defy orders to torture or harm. In addition to the high ethical principles in nursing described above, nurses must adhere to a code of ethics. Ethical nurses understand and respect patient autonomy and the right to self-determination. They inform patients about health status and disease progression to help them make informed decisions about their medical care. The nurse can suggest things that patients would like to discuss with their doctor to better understand treatment options, risks, and potential side effects. Respect for autonomy requires understanding age, pain levels, cultural background, spiritual beliefs, and other factors that can influence the patient`s opinions and decisions. Ethical values are essential for all health professionals. Ethical practice is a foundation for nurses who deal with ethical issues on a daily basis. Ethical dilemmas arise when nurses care for patients.
These dilemmas can sometimes conflict with the nurse`s code of ethics or ethical values. Nurses advocate for patients and must balance patient care. There are four main ethical principles: autonomy, charity, justice and non-malevolence. As with all other aspects of care, the outcomes of interventions to promote ethical practice are evaluated and measured. Nursing ethics are fundamental values, beliefs, principles and codes of conduct that are considered essential to the practice of registered nursing. Nurses rely on their profession`s codes of ethics to resolve ethical dilemmas that arise in their daily work. Ethical decisions are more complicated than moral discernment of what is right and wrong. An ethical dilemma arises when a decision has to be made in the face of competing ethical principles. For example, a nurse must consider whether she is “not doing harm” and pressuring a young patient to continue chemotherapy, or whether she is respecting that patient`s autonomy to stop treatment and receive palliative care. Nurses take their ethical responsibilities seriously, which has earned them the public`s trust. A 2020 Gallup poll ranked nursing as the most ethical and honest profession ahead of 15 other professions, including doctors, pharmacists, teachers, journalists, police officers, and lawyers. Members of Congress and car salesmen ranked last in the same poll.
Patient safety is a primary legal responsibility of nurses. The nurse is a mandatory reporter in case of suspicion of abuse or mistreatment of patients. Medication errors by a fellow nurse should be reported to the supervisor. Nurses must also practise under their licence. For example, an RPN is not allowed to perform RN tasks simply because the care facility is understaffed. Similarly, a registered nurse cannot perform treatments that are the responsibility of a nurse. A patient could be injured by an unqualified nurse – or someone who is impaired by drugs or alcohol – which is a serious ethical violation on the part of the nurse. A nurse must also take care of herself and others. An ideal nurse will have self-respect for health practices and maintain safe practices in care and at home. It is important for a nurse to value nursing as a slow overall skill once the profession is adopted.
A character becoming a nurse would imply integrity. Nurses should take care of their personal growth in terms of further learning about the profession. The ability to grow as a nurse with improvements in care, changes or trends in nursing should be adjusted to maintain competence and allow the profession to develop. In addition to using these resources, the nurse can take appropriate action when faced with an ethical dilemma by understanding and applying the ethical guidelines contained in the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics, the American Medical Association Code of Ethics, the World Medical Association Code of Ethics, the American Nurses Association Standards of Care and Standards of Practice. The American Nurses Association`s pronouncements, such as the one describing the ethical use of narcotic analgesics at the end of life, even though this drug accelerates death, the statements of the nurses` committee, and the code of ethics of the International Association of Nurses. Some of the most common ethical issues and concerns in health care include the allocation of limited resources and end-of-life issues. In addition to publishing the Code of Ethics, the ANA Center for Ethics and Human Rights was established to help nurses manage ethical and value conflicts, as well as life-and-death decisions, many of which are common in everyday practice. The End-of-Life Nursing Consortium (ELNEC) ELNEC is a series of programs developed by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Current ELNEC modules include the core curriculum, pediatric palliative care, geriatrics and many others. There are also train-the-trainer modules.
After a train-the-trainer course, a nurse can then offer an ELNEC course. The courses are comprehensive and provide all the necessary teaching materials. Courses are usually offered in blocks over two days. Confidentiality is also regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act 1996, which sets out the obligation to protect the dissemination of confidential patient information.xxviii This requires reducing the tracking of online systems, the monitoring of registration systems, and the monitoring of the dissemination of confidential information. Password systems are tracked to ensure that hospital staff cannot access patient records without consent. A recent example is the event at Moffitt Cancer Center after it was revealed that a research study had falsified patient consent.xxix Hundreds of documents were fraudulently created during a cancer research study, violating a nurse`s duty to obtain informed consent before performing a procedure. xxx The signature implies that the patient is aware of the procedure, its alternatives and possible risks, so if a nurse does not receive the signature and forges it, the employer and the nurse are responsible for any damage. xxxi In addition to legal considerations, there are also ethical guidelines for care.
The ANA`s Code of Ethics for Nurses with interpretive statements is essential to nursing practice, and the national association has a long history of defending human rights. For example, the ANA successfully lobbied for the ethical right of a Navy nurse to refuse to forcibly feed detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
