Ethical Dilemmas Faced by Nurses and Other Healthcare Professionals

Working in healthcare requires an overall ethical compass to keep the law and order. As a healthcare professional, I rely on Consequential ethics, Normative ethics, and Applied ethics to influence my morality. Consequential ethics, one of the theories that center around achieving the greatest good for most of those involved states that the overall benefits should outweigh the risks. Healthcare is an industry that is patient centered. Organizations such as The Joint Commission apply these ethical standards when surveying facilities and hospitals to give accreditation or penalty. The importance of this theory stems from the principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence or do no harm. If a facility is understaffed and has poorly educated workers

A code of ethics is important because it provides individuals within a group, organization, club or society with a set of rules, standards and guidelines to operate within. When employees don't have a code of ethics, they could engage in less-than-socially acceptable behavior. This can establish a bad reputation for an organization.

Nurse’s face ethical dilemmas every day in their nursing practice. No matter what specific role the nurse plays, these ethical dilemmas impact the nurses as well as the patients. Sometimes it’s no right solution to some of the dilemma we nurses face. First to describe what ethics is, it is the act of doing good by not causing harm to the individual involved.

Ethics Committees are formed to help hospital and medical personnel resolve ethical issues that arise in their facility. The committee members are a mix of hospital personnel, including physicians, nurses, administration, social work, chaplains and others. These professionals work together to assure quality patient care in their facility. To achieve their goal the members must work together with open communication, mutual respect, and shared decision making. I will discuss three points related to the ethics committee, 1) the development, structure, importance and goals of the ethics committee; 2) the importance of intra-professional collaboration, including the role of the nurses; and 3) present the structure, organization and role of an

When discussing the principles and definitions of ethics, the terms beneficence, fidelity, and justice are demonstrated within this particular scenario. Beneficence is described as the will to do good for the sake of the patient as well demonstrating compassion (American Nurses Association, n.d.). The nurse can practice beneficence by looking out for the

In clinical setting, nurses face ethical dilemmas everyday. There is no perfect answer to ethical dilemmas in clinical area. It is important to identify ethics related situation, work as a team to address these problems and provide support for patient and families. Dealing with dilemmas is not just a nursing issue. But the role and function of nurses could affect whole team member and their patients too. In the given scenario, two different views of parents for the sick child create dilemmas. Mother (biological parent) insists that no medical treatment for religious reasons but in the other hand father (biological parents) insist for medical treatment and consultation. This paper discusses the ethical dilemma of given scenario and the solution by using Uustal’s ethical decision making.

Health care professionals must learn how to balance the principles of Nonmaleficence, Beneficence, Autonomy, and Justice especially in a busy hospital as in the case of Armando Dimas. Health care ethics is a type of normative, applied ethics. It is based on the assumption that, despite all of our differences, we can determine what is right and wrong within the constraints of a human condition prone to error. The goal of health care ethics is to provide health care professionals, students who seek health care careers, and members of the general public with moral guidelines that any rational

Ethical dilemmas will always be a part of our nursing practice due to such a diverse patient culture. In some cultural groups, religion dictates the care that is given and by whom (Pacquiao, 2016). The purpose of this paper is to discuss an ethical dilemma that I have encountered in my nursing practice and how the dilemma was perceived. Culturally congruent care will also be defined. Describe an Ethical Dilemma Working in obstetrics and gynecology, the patient population is all female.

Ethics in healthcare is described by Monteverde (2014) as the ultimate goal of reflected practice, to promote moral behaviour with regard to shared ethical standards of healthcare professionals. It is the expectation of staff, and managers to ensure, that quality of care is provided in all situations around the clock in the healthcare settings. Governed by policies

1. What do we mean when we say the word ethics? What are some sensitive ethical issues nurses are faced with today? According to Butts and Rich (2013), ethics is defined as “the study of ideal human behavior and existence, focused on understanding the concepts of and distinguishing between right and wrong” (p. 448). It is an active process that must be supported by theoretically based arguments (Rogers & Bolyard, 2014). Some ethical issues that nurses might be faced with in a clinical practice setting can include matters pertaining to life and death such as those related to abortion, hospice and end of life care/decisions, the possibility of being faced with the prospect of assisted suicide and the implications of genomics and

The ethical term of beneficence provides a framework for nurse’s to promote health and patient’s well- being in general (Ivanov & Oden, 2013). Nurse’s practice beneficence when they directly give care to an individual patient (Bratianu, 2015) or public health nurse’s provide advice to the patient regarding treatment options including about the ”Cost or detriment (invasiveness, pain,

Nurses must face ethical dilemmas on a regular basis during their careers. Having a solid understanding of their own personal values, professional values, as well as, a strong understanding of the ethical principles that guide their actions and decisions, is paramount to handling these ethical dilemmas appropriately. The purpose of this paper is to explore personal and professional values, and the guiding ethical principles that will ultimately lead to a decision in the case of Mrs. Clark, a 78 year old patient who has recently undergone a bowel resection for an intestinal obstruction. Mrs. Clark is 4 days post-operative, and complains of pain that is 8 out of 10 on a numeric pain scale. With a history of drug seeking behavior, the resident has

Because of the nature of the job the RN must review documentation and if issues or concerns are found the RN will request that items be corrected. Please keep in mind we function as a team. It should be everyone’s goal on the team to ensure we are providing the best service possible to our clients. If we fail, we fail as a team not individually so if an issue is pointed out it Is not to be accusatory or to put blame it simply means we need to fix a problem so that the team is shown in the best light. Everyone wants to be a part of a successful winning team in order to do that we all must be open to constructive criticism so we can improve in the respective areas. We all have areas where we need to grow. I want this to be a

Application of ethics in medicine and healthcare are becoming increasingly important as healthcare professionals are considered to be working inter-professionally, that healthcare providers from various backgrounds working collectively to produce high quality care plan.

Nurse professionals may become susceptible to a variety of license issues if the standard care of nursing practice is not executed. Nurses must adhere to institutional protocols, ethical principles and responsibilities that come with the profession. Safety needs to be implemented cautiously and is top priority when nurses render patient care. Legal actions may be taken towards the nurse’s license if failure to perform occurs. An example of a nurse license issue would be malpractice. Malpractice is unethical nursing conduct that involves performing unskillful patient care, exposing the patient to danger (Hogan, 2009). Common unethical conduct includes failure to communicate, mediation errors, and improper documentation that may jeopardize