Legal and Ethical Nursing Issues, Essay Example

What ethical issues do nurses face regarding patient care? Include an example from your work setting or based on the readings.

Ethical issues nurses face regarding patient care includepatients’ refusal of treatment based on religious reasons or due to just distrust of the health care system in America. It is the nurse’s responsibility to promote health and execute this with safety. One patient expressed fear of taking medications because he was told and heard on the media that most of the drugs being used have numerous side effects. From an ethical point of view a nurse should help a patient understand what the side effects of any given drug are by either telling the patient or allowing him/her access to the information. However, for example if a hypertensive medication is prescribed and the patient is hospitalized in this case subsequently refusing treatment. Patients do have a right to know while the nurse still has the responsibility of delivering safe care (American Nurses Association, 2010).

How can your personal biases and beliefs on difficult healthcare decisions impact yourability to provide care?

An example is with whistle blowing when professionals report misconduct of others. This could be considered a bias and is communicated as the person’s own beliefs. On the other hand the person’s behavior too could be emerging from personal biases and beliefs. Therefore, on both instances they affect health care decisions and ultimately ability to provide care (Houston, 2008).

What is the impact of legal responsibilitieson how nurses deal with ethical conflict?

The impact of legal responsibilities pertaining to how ethical conflicts/dilemmas are resolved related largely upon duties the nurse is licensed to perform. A registered nurse has to administer medications; conduct the more technical procedures on a patient such as removing life support when it is ordered by the attending physician. Regardless of whether the nurse feels it is ethical or not her legal responsibilities to execute doctor’s order within the practice jurisdiction(Scott, 2000).

What strategies can nurses use to address this conflict?

Avaluable strategy whichcan be adopted by the nurse in events of ethicalconflict is standing one’s ground as it pertains to the legal responsibility involved in execution of the procedure. Another is referring to the nurse code of conduct on the issue if there is one for that particular situation. A third strategy is seeking advice of senior staff members or supervisors.

References

American Nurses Association (2010). Code of ethics for nurses. Retrieved on February18th, 2014 from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStandards/CodeofEthicsforNurses.aspx

Houston, C. (2008).Professional Issues in Nursing: Challenges and Opportunities (3^rd ed). Lippincott.

Scott, P. A. (2000). Emotion, moral perception, and nursing practice. Nursing Philosophy,1(2), 123–133.