Ethical Issue: Health Care Professions - Article Example

? Nursing ethical issue and its relationship to the ethical and legal aspects of nursing or other health care professions Tutor 15th May, 2013. Nursing ethical issue and its relationship to the ethical and legal aspects of nursing or other health care professions Ethics in nursing is very essential in enhancing proper health care administration and professionalism in the practice. Ethical practices in nursing are enhanced through balancing ethical considerations with professional standards and the appropriate legislation (Heaton , 2008). Effective implementation of ethical practices in nursing mostly requires the involvement of individuals as well as teams. The practitioners are required to identify the legal, ethical and professional values and determine how they can be applied to enhance quality practice in the health care profession (Gillogly & Molly, 2004). According to the nursing ethics, the practitioners in the health care sector are required to demonstrate expertise however they may not be certain about their responsibilities and accountabilities in relation to the legal and ethical issues (Debra , 2009). The main responsibilities entailed in the nursing profession include autonomy, decision making, accountability and great leadership. Ion The decision making process mostly involves the qualified practitioners as they are called upon to apply their expertise skills in developing the guidelines, policies and procedures governing the practice (Tingle & Cribb, 2002). Similarly, the qualified practitioners are involved in research and learning so as to apply their expertise, ethical aspects and the policies to give advice on the related area. Therefore, the nurses and all the practitioners in the healthcare profession are required to be aware of all the guidelines and policies related to the practice as well as understand the requirements of ethical decision making (Heaton, 2008). Nurses and other practitioners in the healthcare sector face various ethical and legal issues in their career as they should combine both the legal and ethical aspects of health care to enhance professionalism in the practice. It is very important for the nurses to understand the difference between ethics and law. The laws are the rules and regulations governing the practice while ethics are meant to ensure appropriate values as well as monitor the actions of the peoples. One of the issues the nurses may face in their profession is where they are faced in acts that are ethical according to the practice but are not legal according to the laws (Tingle & Cribb, 2002). For example the nurses are required to allow cancer patients to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes which are an appropriate measure according to the nursing practice ethical but illegal according to the governing laws. The nursing ethics could also allow the nurse to conduct an aborting in extreme cases so as to save the life of the mother whereas abortion is illegal according to the governing legal structure. Similarly the nurses and other practitioners could also be faced by situations where the practice is neither legal nor ethical but it has to be carried out (Tingle & Cribb, 2002). The issues faced by nurses in their practice are rapidly increasing and the resolution of the issues need careful research and assessment of all the causes and facts related to the cases. To resolve the issue faced in the nursing practice, most institutions implement ethics committees made of professional from all the related areas such as the healthcare professionals, lawyers, ethicists and the clergy among others (Sandra, 2008). This committees are assigned the task of assisting in the decision making process where they resolve the ethical issues faced by the practitioners using the developed guidelines and policies. The nurses are also required cooperate with the other professional in the healthcare sector to educate the public on the on the importance and ways to meet the health requirements so as to enhance ethical practices in the profession (Sandra, 2008). The nurses are also required to work together with other healthcare professional to encourage the national and international efforts in meeting the healthcare requirements to also enhance professionalism and ethical practices (Gillogly & Molly, 2004). The nurses are likely to face various issues in their practice that interfere with their professional values. One to the ethical issue the nurses face is where the nurses are involved with people who do not have the same understanding of the world as the nurse. This issue therefore causes the conflict of understanding where the nurse will be required to provide and balance both the medical and the medical and the nonmedical needs of the person. The nurse is also required to ensure that they do not interfere with the patient’s beliefs, cultures and understanding of the world in their practice (Sandra, 2008). Another ethical issue the nurses are likely to face is the situations where the nurses have more education, training and experience than the physicians. These nurses are however required to follow the instructions and orders of the physician despite their levels of education, training and experience. Additionally the nurses may however not practice legally unless they are under the supervision of a qualified physician (Heaton, 2008). The nurses are required to deal with such as situation and determine whether it is acceptable or find other ways of dealing with the issue in case it causes problems. The nurses also face the issue where some hospitals do not implement a schedule that covers all the shifts thus some nurses have to volunteer some of their time to ensure all the patients receive the required medical care (Gillogly & Molly, 2004). Another challenge the nurses face is where their opinions between the nurses and the physicians and the nurses who issue the instructions conflict. The nurses are supposed to provide reasonable and responsible medical care for the individual patients whereas they are obliged to follow the instructions of the physicians which may be conflicting. The physicians could also be wrong in making the orders for certain patients thus the nurses make their own decisions according to the practice ethics despite the obligation to follow the physicians instructions. The nurses spend more time with the patient as compared to the physician thus they get to know more about the patients and their conditions thus they have a better idea on how to administer their medication than the physician (Debra , 2009). Additionally, sometimes the patients do not follow the medication advice issued by the physician thus the patients must learn how to treat different patients if they are against their interest and health. One of the issues faced by most of the practitioners in the health care sector is the limited lack of adequate facilities that has an impact on the quality of medical services. The nurses must therefore strategies on how well they can distribute the limited resources amongst the patients to ensure quality services (Sandra, 2008). The medical needs of the patients often conflict with the non medical needs of different patients therefore the ,medical practitioners must come up with strategies to determine and distinguish between the medical needs and the non medical needs on different patients and ensure that the medical needs do not override the nonmedical needs (Debra, 2009). Medical practitioners in organizations such as schools, businesses and the military have the challenge of determining whether to offer medication according to the medical needs of the patients of according to the medical needs of the organization. the nurses therefore have the responsibility of determining whether to follow their medical responsibilities or their loyalty to the organization. All professionals in the health care career especially the nursing career are faced with various legal and ethical issues. It is important for then nurses to understand the dilemmas they are likely to face and the measures they are supposed to take in order to protect themselves from malpractices in the nursing career. The nurses need to first understand the difference between law and ethics they need to understand that when the laws are broken it is a punishable offence by the authority governing the practice as well as the legal authorities. The nurses have various ethical duties as they provide their services to patients. The most common ethical duties of the nurse include non male ficence, beneficence, fidelity veracity and justice. The nursing ethical duty of non male ficence is the duty to do no harm to the patients where the nurse first needs to understand the definition of harm according to the nursing practice. For example, if the patient’s medication requires then nurse to administer an injection. The injection will cause pain on the patient but it also protects the patient from additional harm such as diseases. The nurses should also have a clear understanding of how harm should be tolerated. The nursing duty of beneficence is the duty of the health care practitioner to do good deeds (Heaton, 2008). The nurses should always offer their services for the good and benefit of the patient. The nursing duty of fidelity requires the nurse to be faithful and keep their promises to the patient as well as the other colleagues in their career field. For example if the nurse tells the patient that their medication will take ten minutes then the nurses should be accountable and ensure that the medication takes ten minutes or in case of otherwise the nurses should give an explanation (Gillogly & Molly, 2004). Finally, the nursing duty of veracity involves telling the truth and disclosure of information. The main element of this principle is the ethics of disclosure of bad news and good news to the patients. This principle states that it is important for the practitioners to disclose the correct news to the patient since it is their right to know the condition of their illness. The nurses should also consider the capability of the patients to handle bad news. The nurses need to understand that the patients are subjected to various ethical rights that are relevant to healthcare. These patients’ ethical rights are the right to life, right to autonomy and the right to health care. The right to autonomy which is also referred to as the right to self determination gives the patients the right to make their own decisions in determining the medications to take for their conditions as well as the decisions whether to take the medication or not. For example if a patient is suffering from a certain condition they have a right to decide whether to seek medication or not. If the medication is administered the patient also has the right to determine whether to take the issued medicine or not (Heaton, 2008). The right to health care provides the patients with funds, facilities and the personnel that they require so as to access the necessary health care. The right to health care also relates to distributive justice where the patient has the right to be provided with all the funds and facilities for their healthcare. Nurses and other practitioners in the health care sector are also obliged to various ethical standards to which they base their practices. One of the ethic standards is the issue of confidentiality that applies both as an ethical issue and as a legal issue. The nurses are required to keep the information about the patient’s conditions and autonomy confidential and they should not disclose the information to any one without the patients consent. It is important for then nurses to maintain secrecy of the information as the disclosure could damage the patient even causing death (Jones & Sharon, 1996). There are certain laws developed under the health and health insurance act that define the information that can be disclosed and to whom the information is disclosed. For example health organizations such as hospitals and insurance companies do not have the right to disclose the patient’s medical record without their consent unless if it is done to prevent any kind of harm (Elkin & Perry, 2007). According to the nursing ethics nurses are not allowed to have relationships and particularly sexual relationships with their patients. Sexual relationships are prohibited by both the medical and the nursing code of ethics (Heaton, 2008). These relationships are considered as misconducts and could lead to disciplinary actions such as expulsion and termination of the nursing practice license. Sexual relationships between the nurses and patients are also considered as abuse of power because the patients are dependent on the nurses or patients for medication. The management of malpractices is also an important component in the ethical standards of nursing (Jones & Sharon, 1996). The nurses are supposed to understand all actions that are considered as malpractices in the profession. Some of the actions considered as malpractices in the nursing profession include injuries related to defective conduction of surgeries, use of defective facilities on the patient’s medication, ignorance of the patient and use of the wrong medical products for medication among other actions that are considered to deliberately cause harm on the patients. The medical practitioners involved in such malpractices face the risk of disciplinary actions like termination of the practice license or legal action taken against them. For example if the nurse of physician uses the wrong procedures in administering the medication of a patient they are supposed to face disciplinary action. Another standard of ethics in the nursing practice that the nurses are supposed to use is to ensure that the patients are informed on any type of medication or surgery that is administered on them (Heaton, 2008). According to both the nursing and medical code of ethics, any surgery conducted on the patients without their consent is considered as an assault and disciplinary actions could be taken against the medical practitioner. Despite the obligation to follow these ethical standards, the nurses are frequently faced with various issues where in some situations the nurses ignore some of the code of ethics (Benjamin & Curtis, 1998). One of the main roles of the nurses in to ensure that the patients are provided with adequate health care, the nurses may therefore make reasonable decisions against the nursing ethical standards to fulfill their duties. They nurses may also go against the ethics to with the aim of finding a solution to some rare conditions. These issues are therefore referred to as the problems without satisfactory solutions. The solutions and the decisions made for some of these issues however differ between different nurses depending on the interests, values, experience and the beliefs of the specific nurse (Benjamin & Curtis, 1998). One of the additional issues the nurse may face in their duties in nursing in the issue of quality of life as compared to the quantity of life. The quantity of life determines how long a person lives and the number of people that will be affected by the decision while the quality of life defines how good the life of a person is. The quality of life differs between different people as different people have different definitions of a good life. The nurses therefore have an issue in determining on whether to prolong on the quantity of life and also determine its effect on the quality of life. These issue and dilemmas however have an effect on the personal life of the nurses (Gillogly & Molly, 2004). The decisions that the nurses makes on some of these issues are based on the interests, values and beliefs of the nurse. For example some nurses are opposed to the issue of abortion and if certain situations force them to carry out the abortions they may affect the personal beliefs of the nurse. Patients have the right to make their own decisions involving their medications such as whether to follow the proper medication of whether to follow the instructions such as maintaining healthy diets. The nurses cannot forcefully tell the patients to take the medication and follow instructions (Gillogly & Molly, 2004). This could therefore have negative effects on the patients and could even cause death. Nurses are also faced with an issue when deciding whether to tell the truth to the patients or whether to deceive. According to the nursing ethics, the nurses are obliged disclose the truth about the patient health conditions to them. However there are some situations where then nurses deny telling the patient the truth about their conditions and medications especially where the patients cannot handle the bad news. Therefore if telling the truth could cause harm on the patient the nurses opt to deceive about their medication. The nurses may also opt to disclose the patients, medical conditions to their families which are also wrong according to the nursing ethics that forbids the disclosure of the patient’s medical information to other people without their consent (Gillogly & Molly, 2004). Another issue that the nurses are face with is making the decision of determining how well they can distribute resources amongst the patients especially if the resources are limited (Benjamin & Curtis, 1998). In situations where the medication resources are scarce, the patients are likely to have limited access to quality health care. The nurses therefore have the responsibility to reasonably distribute the resources amongst the patients. Some of the patients require more resources as compared to others depending on their conditions, the nurses therefore have to distribute the resources unequally which is against the nursing ethical standards (Debra , 2009). The decisions nurses make in their practice are therefore dependent on the knowledge, experience and the personal beliefs of the nurses. Additionally, the nurses could opt to leave the making of the decisions to other medical practitioners if the decisions made conflict with their personal beliefs. The legal and ethical issues may intertwine depending on different situations and they could cause suffering or even death of the patient. For example if a patients’ needs blood transfusion and the personal values and beliefs of the patients do not allow transfusion, the patient could suffer from the condition to death. The ethical issue and dilemmas vary between different people based on whether they consider the actions right of wrong (Gillogly & Molly, 2004). The legal ethics are mostly the same across different platform though the can change. Despite the issues face by the practitioners in the practice, the legal ethics still play a major role in setting guidelines that help in appropriate making of decisions. The nursing ethical obligations are used because of the nature of the nursing practice, the relationship between the nurses and the patients and the responsibilities assigned to the nurses. Then relationship between the patient and the nurses as part of the importance of the nursing ethics plays a major role in enhancing the communication between the patient, the nurse and their families (Elkin & Perry, 2007). The ethical practices in nursing are also essential in determining the quality of the healthcare provided to the patients. The nurses and other medical practitioners are therefore held responsible for the services provided to the patient. The ethical principles in the nursing practice are also essential in enhancing quality healthcare services. However in situations where the legal ethical, medical and nursing ethics conflict, the nurses are required to apply their specialized skills and knowledge to make reasonable decisions that will assist in ensuring the safety and quality of the patient health conditions (Elkin & Perry, 2007). References Sandra, B. (2008). Decision-Making in Nursing: Thoughtful Approaches for Practice. Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Debra , C. (2009). Nursing Policies and Procedures for Long Term Care. Bloomington: LTCS Books. Gillogly , B. & Molly, C. (2004). Skills and Techniques for the New Nursing Assistant. California, DC: Medcom Inc . Heaton , H. (2008). Nursing assistant training program for long-term care. Wales: National Health Pub. Elkin , M. & Perry, G. (2007). Nursing interventions & clinical skills. Washington, DC: Mosby. Tingle , J. & Cribb, A. (2002). Nursing law and ethics. New Jersey: Blackwell Science. Benjamin , M. & Curtis, J. (1998). Ethics in Nursing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones , R. & Sharon, E. (1996). Decision making in nursing. Connecticut : Cengage Learning. Read More