Ethicial Dilemma

I am going to be writing about the ethical dilemma in healthcare that is all to familiar and that is a patients last wishes. I have seen it so many times so far though out my healthcare career that a patients wishes were not honored. There is specific codes that we have to take when we are in healthcare and here are a few.

Included among these is the International Council of Nurses’ ICN Code of Ethics. This states that nurses, in addition to carrying out their main responsibilities of promoting health, mitigating suffering, and preventing illness in patients, must also display “a respect for human rights, including cultural rights, the right to life and choice, to dignity, and to be treated with respect”.  

The code also states that while nurses are primarily responsible to those individuals who require nursing care, they must also render services to families and communities.

This makes it clear that nurses have a wide range of responsibilities to a wide range of individuals. Ethical dilemmas crop up very frequently in this line of work. Some of the most common dilemmas faced by nurses include:

• Patient Freedom vs. Nurse Control – What happens when a patient decides to make a personal choice about their treatment which is in direct conflict with established medical practices?
• Honesty vs. Selective Information – In some cases, families choose to withhold information about a patient’s medical condition to avoid causing them emotional distress. How does a nurse decide what information to give the patient?
• Dilemmas surrounding Minors – This is a particularly tricky area because not only do nurses have to consider the best interests of the minor patient, but they also have to respect the wishes and beliefs of the child’s parents.
• Patients’ Personal Beliefs – Sometimes, the personal or religious beliefs of a patient may clash with science-based empirical knowledge. A patient’s right to make their own choices/decisions must be carefully balanced against a nurse’s responsibility to provide them with the best care.
• Reproductive-rights – Nurses must deal with the ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ head on, on a daily basis. A patient’s choice may even clash with their own personal moral views on the matter.

(Above is cited from a nursing education magazine January 2018)

Ethical dilemmas occur in nursing when you or someone experiences a conflict with personal values or beliefs and with some aspect of patient care. The struggle is to perform the job and provide the best possible patient care no matter what you are feeling. But, ethical dilemmas in nursing aren't all the same. The environment and specialty a RN works in can determine specific ethical dilemmas. For instance, working in the PICU may be asked to care for a child who has been a victim of child abuse and be asked to also be kind and impartial to the parents at their child's bedside who are suspected, but not convicted, with the crime Or perhaps working in hospice may feel some satisfaction on a personal level in providing comfort care to a terminally ill patient who is actively dying because he/she believes it is the right thing to do, but feels conflicted by seeing the patient's family so distraught and the loss they will feel forever. .we have a duty and a responsibility to our patients to always guide them in finding the right plan of care for them, based on their belief system alone. Keeping ourselves and our own beliefs out of the situation is important in helping patients receive amazing and individualized care. At the end of the day, there are many ethical dilemmas that present themselves in nursing. In complex healthcare settings, nurses have a responsibility to ensure their patients get the best care while grappling with sensitive ethical issues. This ethical tight-rope is walked by nursing professionals on a daily basis; how they handle these ethical dilemmas will vary.