Do Not Resuscitate: Nurses Face Legal Ethical Dilemmas

The main function of the healthcare ethics committee is to resolve ethical conflicts by providing consultations and conflict resolution, answer ethical questions, promote patient rights and shared decision making between patients, surrogates, and their clinicians, promote fair policies and procedures that increases the probability of attaining good and patient-centered outcomes, and provide education (Ethics Committees, Programs, and Consultants, 2013). The committee reviews cases on a case-by-case basis and assists patients, family, and staff with coming to an agreement on the options that best met their needs (Healthcare Ethics Committee, 2013). The healthcare ethics committee is structured to include a broad span of community leaders in positions of political stature, respect, and diversity (Healthcare Ethics Committee, 2013). The healthcare ethics committee should include a multifaceted team, consisting of physicians,

The case study that I chose was from Nursing Ethics Journal is titled, The twins: a case study in ethical deliberation. This case presents a nurses perspective about nine year old, Roman Catholic, Hispanic twins, who survived a very difficult preterm birth and were in a persistent vegetative state since childbirth. The parents took care of the twins along with their four other children, but the growing demand of the twins was starting to take a toll on the parents, so they decided to place the twins in an institution. From the time that the twins were admitted to the institution, they have been frequently admitted to the hospital related to respiratory illnesses and urinary tract infection, which were a result of their deteriorating immune system. The nurse’s role was to obtain a do not resuscitate (DNR) order from the parents due to the doctors stating the twins have less than a year left to live, and “why prolong the inevitable?”

Long-term care facilities have become home to some individuals due to loss of capacity for independent living which normally caused by some illness that result in them not being able to care for themselves or to perform any daily living activities, such as cooking, eating, bathing, and toileting. Now as an administrator of a long-term care facility, I am responsible to make sure that everything runs smooth; in another word I play most important role in the facility. I am in charge of everything that goes on including patient admissions, facility policies, laws, finances, facility maintenance, residential care and staffing. A number of ethical issues can and will arise in a long-term care facility, such as providing patient care, dealing with

Reading this article for the elderly care, I feel that ethical issues commonly occur anywhere in the treatment of older patients. I had a clinical experience both in an acute-care hospital and in a long-term care facility. Before working in a long-term facility, I was not aware of how many ethical principles were violated in the treatment of older patients as a daily routine as stated in the article. In reality, there are many situations in which older patients don’t completely exhibit their autonomy because they are vulnerable physically and emotionally and dependent on others. Therefore, they become more conscious of caregivers or healthcare professionals.

Amidst a whirlwind of change, nurses continue their roles as competent, honorable professionals. A relatively new issue, cultural integrity, correlates with the Code regarding “treatment of the human response.” The American Nurses Association’s “Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements”, also called the Code, highlights nurses’ consensus on professional principles. Nursing ethics guide how practitioners treat their patients and peers. Sensitivity to individual societal, familial and cultural background plays an important role in organizational integrity.

Healthcare professionals should have a clear understanding from the beginning of their jobs to provide care that is catered to their patient’s needs and does no harm to their patient, yet some caretakers tend to walk the fine line between what is ethical and what is convenient. In Carolyn Buppert’s article, “Can I Prescribe for My Elderly Father?” , Buppert describes a situation involving nurse practitioners prescribing medications to family members for different reasons; nevertheless, this is a violation of the principle of justice because it is against the law to provide medications to family members without proper medical documentation (citation).

The code of ethics is important—providing nurses with the knowledge of exactly what to do in certain situations. The code of ethics for nurses make the nurses’ job easier because the provisions promote knowledge, team collaboration which makes caring for patient almost effortless. In contradiction, the third provision states imply that “nurses advocate for, and protects the rights, health, and safety of the patient” (Lachman et al., 2015). The third provision could present with a dilemma when it comes to whistle blowing. Whistle blowing is described as “telling the truth about individuals or systems that are harming or potentially could harm patients, regardless of personal outcome” (Hopper 2011).

Nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas related to clinical issues, and disease and treatment decisions daily (Kangasniemi,

In this reading, the ethical issue is related to decision making for an incompetent patient. Here is some background information about the case: Robert became incompetent after a car accident in 1993. His physical and mental functions were permanently disabled. The right side of his body was paralyzed so he couldn’t carry out any activity in daily life even swallowing.

The ethical issues that are faced in nursing homes stem from a conflict of the institution's policy, staffing concerns regarding safety matters, and the general desires and preferences of the residents. When moving into a nursing, there is a loss of privacy as many residents share bedrooms, bathrooms, and common areas. The resident’s independence and decision-making ability over matters such as what to eat, wear, and their entertainment can all be controlled by the nursing facility, and this leads to a loss of autonomy. There are also concerns when the decision-making capacity of a resident conflicts with the general well-being of the nursing home populations. Moral issues that come into play when the resident has demonstrated a lack of competent decision-making practices is that who’s input regarding the resident's well-being has their best interest.

The critically issues or impact which are in nursing those are daily facing these things us per the types of patient but nurses are everywhere they have long struggled with ethical challenges for patient care Nurses face daily ethical challenges in the provision of quality care for retain nurses targeted ethics-related interventions that address caring for an increasingly complex patient population are needed because ethicla issues the stress of the nursing practices and patients rights also, also ethical issue can occur in any healthcare situation where profound moral questions of rightness or wrongness underlie professional decision-making and the beneficent care of nurses for the patients but the appropriate and general institutional review

Utilitarianism and Deontology are two major ethical theories that influence nursing practice. Utilitarian principles of promoting the greatest good for the greatest amount of people parallels the nursing tenet of beneficence. Deontological principles of treating individuals with dignity, and promoting the well-being of the individual parallels the nursing tenet of non-maleficence. Utilitarian and Deontological principles can be utilized to resolve ethical dilemmas that arise in the nursing profession. The purpose of this paper is to define utilitarianism and deontology, discuss the similarities and differences between the two, and to address an ethical dilemma utilizing utilitarian and deontological principles.

Ethics in health care play a vital role every day. The practice of health care includes many scenarios that have to do with making adequate decisions when it comes to patient’s life. For the purpose of this paper, I want to explain the occurrence and some of the ethical concerns found in a case of an elderly patient, who believed in Curanderos and didn’t realize the harm she was doing in regards to her health by not taking her medications. This was a case I found in the book Ethics in Administration a Practical Approach for Decision Makers. The case is the following, Porter Sanders was the assistant administrator at a home health program.

The nurses should conversant with the patient’s bill of rights and apply them in practice to protect themselves and patients too. 7. Understanding Ethical Dilemma: The topic is taken from module 7.1 of BMN03 of the Ethical Issues in Nursing Practice. The topic deals with the ethical dilemmas that nurses encounter daily in the practice of their profession, origin of ethical issues, types of ethical dilemma, common ethical dilemmas faced by nurses every day, decision-making model in ethical issues, and lastly scenarios of ethical issues with examples.

The provision one of nursing code of ethics stated that “the nurse practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, and personal attributes of every person, without prejudice” (Fowler, 2010). Under this provision, the nurse needs to respect for human dignity, establish a trusting relationship with patients without bias or prejudice, and respect patient’s autonomy. According to this provision, as a future nurse, I am obligated to respect patient’s health care choices regardless of my personal belief. I can assist the patient in making health care choice for patient’s best interest; however, I should not impose my personal belief in influencing patient’s decision. I should also care for all patients without judgments.