The professional practise of nursing brings with it several daily, ethical dilemmas. This sometimes makes it hard for nurses to make ethical decisions and to help them do so, the American Nurses Association (ANA) has provided a code of ethics for guidance. Apart from ensuring that nurses make ethical decisions, the code helps improves their morale, makes their work less stressful, and augments the patients’ outcomes. Some of the issues addressed in the code of ethics pertain to the safety of patients, the promotion of the rights and dignity of patients, and the advancement of the nursing profession.
Nurses may find the 2001 American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (hereafter referred to as the Code) a thoughtful framework for evaluating their own collaborative skills. The Code also provides the 'nonnegotiable ethical standard' ( ANA, 2001, p. 5) that calls each of us to act ethically. According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), the nursing code of ethics is a guide for “carrying out nursing responsibilities in a manner consistent with quality in nursing care and the ethical obligations of the profession.”. Ethics, in general, are the moral principles that dictate how a person will conduct themselves. The American Nurses Association (ANA) stresses the importance of patient advocacy in its Code of Ethics and lists three core values that form its basis: preserving human dignity, patient equality, and freedom from suffering. This three-part blog series will address each of these core values in turn. Equality is a much discussed concept, one.
The Principles of the Nursing Code of Ethics
There are nine essential provisions in the ANA code of ethics. They ensure that nurses remain ethical in all their duties. Some of the provisions include;
- Every human being has dignity, worth and unique attributes and the nurse is enjoined to practice her profession with compassion and respect for every person.
- Whether an individual, a family, a group, community or population, the nurse’s primary commitment is to the patient is mandatory.
- The basic rights, health and safety of the patient are what the nurse is enjoined to promote, advocate for, and protect at all times.
- The nurse is required to advance the profession through research and scholarly inquiry, professional standards development, and the generation of both nursing and health policy in all her roles and settings.
The most important issue for an aspiring nurse like me, among the above four essential elements of the ANA code of ethics, is the one pertaining to safety of patients. One has to be alert as a professional to the doctors’ instructions, understanding of the patient’s physical and mental condition, the prescribed medications, their effects and side-effects and dosage timings, and the use of technologies that enhance patient safety, treatment, recovery and recuperation. While I am confident about being professional about the above aspects, being compassionate and respectful towards the feelings of both patient and his/her relatives is a tougher challenge. Further, given the busy schedule of a nurse, I have to be careful not to allow any accidents, infections, injuries, or clinical errors in dealing with each patient.
Today, nurses live in healthcare scenarios that are more holistic in terms of treatment procedures. The commitment and care towards the patient is primary and, in this context, I find it challenging to improve my communication skills with other nursing and clinical staff, the patients and their families. Communication skills are critical because sometimes one is not just treating a single patient but may be dealing with many similar cases in a group scenario and yet each patient is unique in terms of their needs and assurances required. I have to constantly keep in mind that patients and their relatives also have both fundamental human and legal rights and that my services and communications must keep those rights in mind when dealing with them so that no offense is given. Antares autotune 7 v7.0.8 vst rtas audio. Respecting the worth and dignity of patients is also about respecting their legal rights and I am aware of the challenges in respecting the patients’ right to autonomy, information about their treatment and medical condition and to make choices on their treatment and privacy.
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Nursing is a hectic profession and I struggle with fulfilling the principle in the code of ethics that encourages me to advance my profession through research. I have been consistently trying to upgrade my knowledge base by keeping both mental and written notes about interesting cases and then referring to medical or nursing books or discussing these with peers so that I can gain a broader and deeper understanding of the profession and how it can be advanced. I propose to enrol myself in taking short courses that help me undertake research projects to harness knowledge and learn more about evidence-based practices to improve patient care. This learning will also help me develop nursing policies, along with peers, that can guide our practice.
The American Nursing Association’s code of ethics is a very useful starting point that enables nurses to make ethical decisions that facilitate the provision of high-quality healthcare. I am interested in various ways the ANA code of nursing ethics is being interpreted in a variety of situations pertaining to how medical professionals can and must respect the rights and dignity of patients. Another emerging area I am interested in relates to how patients from different cultural backgrounds and belief systems can be looked after without their sensibilities being offended. Overall, I find that the ANA ethical guidelines are a strong foundation for nurses to safeguard the patients’ right to safety and compassionate care and to improve healthcare through research.
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Nursing is more than delivering care; it involves patient advocacy as well. Because they have the most direct interaction with patients, nurses are in the ideal position to advocate for each one on an individual basis. The American Nurses Association (ANA) stresses the importance of patient advocacy in its Code of Ethics and lists three core values that form its basis: preserving human dignity, patient equality, and freedom from suffering. This three-part blog series will address each of these core values in turn.
Equality is a much discussed concept, one that has historically been difficult to achieve in practice. It is a concept that is central to many ethical theories, and nursing ethics are no exception. The ANA’s Code of Ethics states that nurses must practice “with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, and uniqueness of every individual, unrestricted by considerations of social or economic status, personal attributes, or the nature of health problems.” This means all nurses must set aside prejudice or personal bias to care for all patients with the same degree of professionalism, regardless of who that patient is. Access 2010 for mac free download. What’s more, recognizing and promoting patient equality is one of three core values that form the basis of nursing’s patient advocacy role.
In healthcare, patient equality comes down to two main themes: universal human value, and equal access to healthcare resources.
The theme of universal human value relates to the recognition that every life has value. It was highlighted dramatically in the Boston Globe’s coverage of the trauma nurses who cared for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect in 2013, including in this excerpt:
All of the nurses asked by supervisors to care for Tsarnaev agreed, the hospital said. The Globe interviewed seven of them, and all said that the ethical bedrock of their profession requires them to treat patients regardless of their personal history. They are sometimes called upon to nurse drunk drivers, prisoners, gang members, but this assignment was the ultimate test of Florence Nightingale’s founding ideals.
TheGlobe also reported that, “The nurses said they were proud of the care they provided the suspected bomber, whose condition steadily improved, and of their role in preparing him to face justice.”
These nurses were able to overcome their ambivalence about caring for the bombing suspect in order to do their jobs with skill, professionalism, and even compassion, as they provided comfort and pain relief in a difficult situation. They truly promoted the principle of patient equality, despite the circumstances.
The other side of patient equality has to do with our healthcare system itself, which is prone to disparities in the way care is delivered and who has access to high-quality care. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), “a large body of published research reveals that racial and ethnic minorities experience a lower quality of health services, and are less likely to receive even routine medical procedures than are White Americans.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on Health Disparities and Inequalities found that mortality rates from various chronic illnesses were all higher for certain minority populations. For example, while African-American women develop breast cancer at lower rates than white women, they are more likely to die from their disease. Disparities exist for ethnic populations due to factors that may include: social isolation, socioeconomic status, discrimination, language/cultural barriers, and environmental factors, among others.
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Nurses have a long history of caring for underserved and vulnerable populations, and this should continue—but with a focus on practices that may help to end disparities. Cultural competency can go a long way in helping minority patients overcome barriers that stand in their way of receiving excellent care, particularly for nurse case managers and oncological nurse navigators, who are trained to look for and overcome barriers to care. Yet even bedside nurses can advocate for underserved patients in a myriad of ways. Ideally, every patient should receive the same quality of care regardless of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, education, or income.
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