[University Affiliation]
Ethical and legal conduct
Being a responsible individual and a nurse, I would be giving the patient all possible information about the ailment he has. Special emphasis would be made to educate the patient of the disease, issues associated with it and how it can be transferred to others. It is the responsibility of the trained nurse to be transparent about the ailment and the damage it can cause to themselves as well as to others. In the case of an ailment like HIV, which is deadly and is communicable, it comes under ethical practice to let the patient to convey the information to the people who are likely to be associated with them closely and have fairly high chances of getting the disease. In case if the patient is unwilling to disclose the information I will be disclosing the information to his family and people who are close to him. So being her girlfriend, I will be informing my sister regarding the patient’s ailment if he did not disclose the matter. This is to prevent the disease from spreading any further as well as to make sure that the patient get the best care possible.
It becomes the responsibility of the nurse to convince the patient to convey the truth regarding the ailment and confess it to his or her dear ones. According to the ANA code of conduct, it is said that the self determination of the patient can be prevailed over in cases when the health, rights and interests of others are at stake. Based on the code of ethical conduct, under the duty of confidentiality it is said that it can be adapted in view to safe guard other people and in situations where there could be problems associated with public health. In the case of HIV, the possibility of spreading the deadly disease to others if such patients with ailments are not properly following safety practices.
So it can be considered that the nurse in the case study, Lena went by the provisions in the code of conduct for nurses and not against the ethical practices.
References
ANA’s Code of ethics for nurses.
ANA’s social policy statement.
