Nursing Roles and Values Task One

As a registered nurse practicing in the state of California I am responsible for practicing within my states legal regulations and nursing scope of practice. My concern for the welfare of the sick and injured allows me to practice ethical provisions of nursing. These are required if I am to carry out competent and effective nursing care. Nursing encompasses the prevention of illness, the alleviation of suffering, and the protection, promotion, and restoration of health in the care of individuals. Therefore, as health care professionals we must be familiar with the different philosophical forces, ethical principles, theories and values that influence nursing. At the same time, we must be respectful to our patient’s

There are many different roles and values within the profession of nursing. Each of these roles and values has a different job description and purpose, yet they all contain one common link. The link that connects the different roles in the nursing profession is the fact that they each rely on nursing research, theories, and evidence based practice to provide safe, quality care to patients. Without nursing research, theories, and evidence based practice, nursing care would be based on trial and error methods that often cause more harm than good to the patient.

According to the Nurses Practice Act (2015) set by IDFPR, unethical or unprofessional conduct includes actions or practices that causes harm, fraud, disregard for health, welfare or safety of the patient, sexual conduct, substance abuse, inability to practice nursing, behavior that crosses professional boundaries, and failure to confirm to standards of nursing practice. Examples of these actions would be medication errors, falsely documenting patient records, claiming unworked hours on payroll, or being verbally abusive to patients. The Board of Nursing is responsible to investigate the complaints. The National

As I prepare for my first classes in nursing school, I recognize my unique position to examine the values that I will bring into my nursing career. Without any experience, my values remain relatively unshaped regarding healthcare. In contrast, the values of nurses who have already accumulated a variety of experiences tend to be more nuanced and informed. For this exercise, I met with one of these experienced nurses—CC, a cardiac-catheterization laboratory nurse who just welcomed her third child. Together, CC and I explored the differences in our upbringings, how we were each sucked into nursing, and how our values have changed throughout different life experiences. Above all, I intended to delve into the story of her fifteen-year career in order to discover how an experienced nurse philosophizes patient care.

Advance Directives by the patient designates no feeding tubes, artificial ventilation, or CPR. Concerns regarding alteration of mental status consequential to his illness provoke the physician to seek consultation from the designated Power of Attorney. Nursing responsibilities compel the nurse to consider if the proposed actions of Dr. G violate the patient’s rights of self determination and confidentiality and prompt the nurse to advocate for the patient’s desires regarding medical treatment. Health care providers have a responsibility to honor the patient’s autonomy and provide quality medical care (Badger, 2009 p122). Providing artificial nutrition and ventilation transgresses the patient’s directives and is unethical. The physician appears to be asserting a paternalistic approach in deciding what is best for this patient. Should the interventions be temporary and provide resolution of the condition, the physician can defend his actions as being healing and beneficial. However, there is a chance that the interventions may be permanent and futile; avoiding passive euthanasia and terminal dehydration, serving only to prolonging the illness. Violating the patient’s directives of care by performing invasive procedures can lead to legal incriminations of assault and battery.

Everyone’s values and beliefs about the profession of nursing are all different. The four concepts of nursing are interrelated and all mean something different to every person, too. Throughout this paper, I will be reflecting on my values and beliefs about nursing through the four concepts while comparing them to a nursing theorist with views that are most similar to my own.

Any hospitalization is a stressful situation for all parties, the patient and family. In this scenario it is even more stressful because it is a life and death decision. Mr. Y’s brother is diabetic with a history of high blood pressure. Mr. Y has to face the ethical issues of quality of life versus quantity of life in deciding to follow his brother’s wishes or not. Mr. Y most likely did not understand a lot of what was happening and may have felt that it was too heavy a decision to let his brother die if no heroic measures were taken. Mt. Y asked for his niece’s opinion, indicating Mr. Y’s inability to make a decision.

In class, we’ve discussed a lot of things during our group discussion. First, we discussed the professional nursing responsibilities of this case. We said that nurses job is to educate the patients so they don’t have to come back; they can’t be judgemental no matter what the situation is; they have to report certain evidences even if the patient doesn't want us to; we can provide the information to the client’s authorities (not just anyone); and we need to look and observe the patient for verbal and nonverbal clues. Second, we discussed the nursing ethical implications for this case. We said that nurses should always respect the patient's decisions; need to provide the same, equal, and quality care for all patients; don’t always make assumptions; take patient’s values to consideration; to ask patients who they are comfortable with visiting them during their stay; always provide all the information to the patient; and remember to keep boundary, know what information to give and what not to give. Then we discussed elements of the nurse patient relationship we think are

There are several legal and ethical issues relating to FWR. Some of the key legal concerns expressed by healthcare professionals include the potential for litigation, patient confidentiality, and the patient’s right to privacy (Mian et al, 2007; Critchell et al, 2007). Litigation and liability concerns arise from the fact that, in most cases, family members will have little understanding of the procedures used in the code room. The fear is that the staff’s actions could be perceived as detrimental or harmful to the patient in the eyes of the typical lay-person. The reality is that once healthcare providers become educated and experienced with FWR,

Healthcare professionals will be faced with ethical dilemmas throughout their career, particularly in the hospital environment. Having an education regarding professional healthcare ethics will provide some direction in how to best address these dilemmas at a time when either the patient or their family is in need of making decisions for themselves or their family member. It can be difficult for healthcare professionals to weigh professional protocol against their own personal beliefs and ethical understandings when determining critical care for their patient.

The right for consent and autonomy of the patient conflicted with the decision of the medical team resulting to an ethical dilemma in this case. An informed consent can be accomplished through communication, implicit or explicit, or a signed consent (Taylor, 2013). The individual must be competent, which means capable of understanding, retaining, using and weighing information to communicate decision with others, in order for the consent to be valid (Taylor, 2013). In addition, the consent should be taken without any medical administration, or distress that can compromise the patient’s competency. The result of an individual or team that committed non-consensual act can be charged with battery, or assault (Taylor, 2013). According to the code of ethics, the health care teams have an obligation to honor the patient’s decision to withdraw (Lachman, 2015). The medical team ignored the withdrawal of the patient concerning the surgery and continues to proceed with the operation, which is a breach from the patient’s consent. If the patient’s rejection is discarded, it also violates the patient’s autonomy, which is the capacity to act freely with decision and independently (Purtilo, 2013). According to the code of ethics, “patients have the moral and legal right to determine what will be done with and to their person,”

Ethical principals are the seed of which nursing flourishes from. Many ethical principals were involved and dishonored in this case such as, justice, autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, confidentiality and fidelity (Burkhardt et al., 2014). I believe justice was the main principal involved as the entire ethical predicament was revolved around unjust behavior and treatment of the residents. The residents were treated poorly and given unequal rights as a causation of their illnesses. Autonomy, an essential piece of human rights was also being violated in this ethical dilemma. The residents did not have any choice or independence in their care or how they were being treated. Beneficence and non-maleficence are significant dynamics of this ethical situation, as the health care providers needed to reflect on how they can have the maximum benefit while diminishing possible damage to the residents (Burkhardt et al., 2014). Our actions as nurses should always be beneficent and non maleficent, continuously being kind, compassionate and doing what is in their best interest as well a removing and preventing harm. Confidentiality is a key component of nursing and it was blatantly being violated as the health care

The autonomy of a competent patient is an issue not often debated in medical ethics. Refusal of unwanted treatment is a basic right, likened to the common law of battery, available to all people capable of a competent choice. These fundamental rules of medical ethics entered a completely new forum as medical technology developed highly effective life-sustaining care during the 20th century. Several watershed cases elucidated these emerging issues in the 1960’s and 70’s, none more effectively than that of Karen Ann Quinlan. Fundamentally, this case established that a once-competent patient without the possibility of recovery could have their autonomy exercised by a surrogate in regard to the

Urgency of acute care varies depending on the situation but can range to anything from emergency surgeries, to injuries, chronic illnesses, and also for the recovery of those procedures. Majority of the patients in acute care settings are critically ill. Nursing responsibilities in acute care settings are vital to patient’s recovery due to the front line position nurses play as well as the wide variety of tasks carried out. Assessments are made during every encounter the nurse has with the patient along with monitoring the patient’s progress. Nurses are responsible for recognizing symptoms the patient may be experiencing due to illness or injury and whether they fall in the spectrum of normal reactions. Vital signs are measured routinely and can be indicators of the patient’s current status. When vitals are questioned diagnostic tests can be arranged to further assess possible comorbidities the patient may have. Care plans are made to plan interventions the health care team can take to help patients through challenges they face, both physical and mental. Nurses administer medications as well as first aid as needed. They are responsible for maintaining special equipment patients may require including monitors and ventilators are well.

I will argue that withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration is not morally different from withdrawing other types of life-sustaining treatment. I will argue the opinion using the ethical principle of beneficence, researching medical treatments of artificial nutrition and providing example of life-sustaining treatments that are equally in similar to artificial nutrition and hydration. In the vignette of Ms. Conrad, I argue reasons for removing a Nasogastric Intubation (NG) to reduce other medical complications that can occur, and the discomfort the tube could cause to the patient.