In preparation for this discussion, clearly identify an ethical issue that you have professionally experienced. If you do not have an experience to share, search the literature and select a published case. Provide a clear summary of the event (do not identify your place of employment by name or any names of people involved), including applicable source or reference(s). Discussion questions (links to objective #2).
Include the following areas in your post:
Describe the ethical issue using ethical principles or ethical tenets (Week 1 and Week 2). Remember, that ethical dilemmas exist when two or more ethical principles are in contention and equally justifiable. If there is a clear right and wrong, there is not an ethical dilemma. Identify the conflicting principles, select the principle you would choose, and offer a possible solution(s). Please include information on nursing liability, informed consent, or the role of effective communication in relationship to your shared experience.
Required Texts and Materials:
Guido, G. W. (2020). Legal and ethical issues in nursing (7th ed.). Pearson.
Goudreau, K., & Smolenski, M. (2018). Health policy and advanced practice nursing: Impact and implications. Springer Publishing.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). Author.
Chism, L. (2019). The doctor of nursing practice: A guidebook for role development and professional issues (4th ed.). Jones and Bartlett.
Reminder: Your written assignments must follow APA 7th edition guidelines. Be sure to support your work with specific citations/sources.
Ethical Issue and Principles
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Ethical Issue and Principles
Doctorally prepared nurses should be in a position to make ethically sound decisions whenever they are faced with an ethical dilemma. They should use ethical principles and tenets to make moral decisions (Guido, 2020; Chism, 2019; Goudreau & Smolenski, 2018; American Nurses Association, n.d.). An ethical issue that was once experienced in practice concerned making treatment decisions for an elderly patient diagnosed with cancer. An 89-year-old male patient was brought to the hospital by his family members and was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. The doctor recommended that the patient be started on chemotherapy immediately considering the fact that his health was deteriorating very fast. However, the patient did not want to begin cancer treatment claiming that it will place a huge economic burden on family members yet he might not live longer considering his health condition and advanced age. On the contrary, the patient’s family members were putting a lot of pressure on the nurse to initiate chemotherapy as soon as possible to save the patient’s life. This is a case of an ethical dilemma that requires careful decision-making.
The three conflicting principles in the scenario are the principles of justice, autonomy, and beneficence. The nurse has an ethical obligation to respect the patient’s autonomy or self-determination, provide care that will generate maximum benefits for the patient in accordance with the principle of beneficence, and ensure fairness in resource utilization for both the hospital and the patient’s family members (Haddad & Geiger, 2021). A dilemma occurred in the named scenario because it was difficult to start chemotherapy without obtaining informed consent from the patient. Besides, it was important to consider the economic burden involved in the treatment of cancer and how it would affect the patient and his family members. Moreover, the situation was preventing the nurse from demonstrating beneficence because avoiding treatment would cause harm to the patient and this might attract a legal liability against the nurse. The principle that would allow ethical actions is that of beneficence. Under provision 1 of the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for nurses, nurses are legally obliged to practice with compassion and consider the unique attributes of patients when providing clinical care. Issues such as proximity to death or functional status should not make them view their patients as worthless (American Nurses Association, n.d.). Therefore, guided by the principle of beneficence, the best solution applied to the case was that the nurse engaged in personalized communication with the patient and his family members and was able to convince him to start cancer treatment.
References
American Nurses Association. (n.d.). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/ethics/code-of-ethics-for-nurses/coe-view-only/
Chism, L. (2019). The doctor of nursing practice: A guidebook for role development and professional issues (4th ed.). Jones and Bartlett.
Goudreau, K., & Smolenski, M. (2018). Health policy and advanced practice nursing: Impact and implications. Springer Publishing.
Guido, G. W. (2020). Legal and ethical issues in nursing (7th ed.). Pearson.
Haddad, L. M., & Geiger, R. A. (2021). Nursing ethical considerations. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526054/