Context of Professional Practice - Essay Example

Part One
Legal principles basically refer to rules or standards of behavior. These principles also refer to the supporting rationale for certain standards in the practice, including principles referring to their allowance or prohibition in the healthcare profession. The principles of ethical practice refer to the code of ethics for the healthcare professionals, clarifying specific elements of the practice including the ethical principles which emerge from or react to such specific elements. These principles serve as goals in managing public health institutions (Public Health Leadership Society, 2002).

Legal principles and principles of professional ethical practice refer to different aspects of the nursing practice (Royal College of Nursing, 2013). The legal principles refer to the legally mandated principles of healthcare while the principles of professional ethical practice are based on the standards of ethics which may not necessarily be mandated by legal provisions, but are still part of the minimum requisites of medical and nursing care (Dimond, 2008). Within the nursing practice, the legal principles refer to the principles laid out by the Royal College of Nursing in partnership with the Department of Health and Nursing and Midwifery Council.

The ethical principles include the four basic health ethical requirements: self-determination/autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice (McElroy, 2011). These four principles may not be specifically included as legally mandated principles in the nursing practice, but violations of these ethical requirements are still punishable by the law and by the professional councils (Thompson, et.al., 2006). In applying legal principles and principles of professional codes of practice, I discovered that making judgments and decisions during the practice must be applied as independent and non-mechanistic processes.

My judgment as a clinical practitioner is required under the context of complying with the minimum legal and professional codes of the practice. I cannot follow one and ignore the other because these principles help provide essential support for the effective management of patient conditions (Fry and Johnstone, 2008). Issues of responsibility and accountability in delegating activities to others may relate to problems on improper delegation (Leathard, 2003). Where certain functions are delegated, all the essential elements of proper delegation must be complied with, including the importance of delegating the task to a person who is trained and capable of expertly carrying out the assigned task (Gillen and Graffin, 2010).

Accountability may still emerge in these cases where the delegator has not secured the necessary means to ensure that the task delegated is being properly carried out by a competent individual. This would include the responsibility of following up with the delegatee and supervising his or her work (Gillen and Graffin, 2010). Delegating the task to oneself must also comply with the same standards of the practice, including competence. Where competence cannot be ensured, the task must not be delegated to oneself.

The aspect of the nursing practice which shall be the subject of this reflection is the nursing care for diabetic patients. During my care for a diabetic patient, I discovered that these patients face various challenges in their care, mostly with the management of their blood glucose levels.  In most of the patients, strictly following a diet that would not lead to high and low glucose levels was a major consideration.