Table of Contents
The nursing profession is often put to the test by morally challenging choices as an essential component of the healthcare system. Nurses are forced to make decisions that might have a long-lasting impact on their patients when their principles, ethics, or obligations conflict. This essay will look at the many ethical issues that nurses confront, provide instances of common scenarios and the moral guidelines that should be applied to them, and explain the need of ethical training for nurses.
Nurses often encounter difficulties that generate moral concerns since they are at the frontline of patient care. Examples include decisions about the end of life, conflicts of interest, the distribution of scarce resources, and patient autonomy. These difficulties put nurses’ ability to weigh opposing ideas or views on the line and test their emotional stamina.
For instance, balancing conflicting considerations like patient autonomy and the patient’s best interests is a common ethical dilemma. The nurse must weigh the patient’s right to autonomy against the reality of the situation if they reject life-saving care because of their religious or cultural convictions.
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When nurses are charged with distributing limited resources, similar issues with justice and fairness may surface. In situations when there are little resources available, as there were during the current COVID-19 epidemic, choosing who should get treatment first may be exceedingly challenging.
Finding answers to these conundrums usually requires the use of ethical principles like autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and fairness. We refer to allowing patients the opportunity to choose their own medical care as autonomy. Doing good for others, or “beneficence,” is identical with “do no harm,” or “non-maleficence.” To practice justice, one must treat everyone equally and fairly. A careful balance of these ideals is necessary for finding ethical solutions to problems. The non-maleficent principle, sometimes referred to as “do no harm,” stresses the obligation to prevent patients from suffering damage. Finally, justice and fairness demand that everyone be treated equally and that resources be distributed in a fair and open way.
Although having a theoretical understanding of ethical notions is useful, complicated real-world problems usually need more. It requires emotional intelligence, moral imagination, and good judgment. As part of their academic and continuing professional development, nurses must thus get instruction in making ethical decisions.
Conclusion
In the end, ethical challenges are unavoidable in the nursing field, requiring a delicate juggling act between a variety of ideas and aspirations. If nurses base their decisions on moral standards and increase their ethical competence, they may confront these issues head-on with honesty and compassion. Nurses must be dedicated to continual ethical education and reflection if they are to deliver care that respects patients’ rights, dignity, and wellbeing.
References
- John F. Childress and Theodore L. Beauchamp. 2013. “Principles of Biomedical Ethics” is the title.
- (2010). Taylor, C., S.T. Fry, and R.M. Veatch. “Case Studies in Nursing Ethics” was published in 2018. A. Fine, P. Jakel, K. Brown-Saltzman,
- and C. Pavlish. 2018 publication of “The Characteristics of Ethical Conundrums and the Methods for Solving Them” Grady C. and Ulrich C.
- “Moral Distress in the Health Professions” is the title.
- American Nurses Association, 2015. Interpretation statements for the nursing ethics code.
