Modern-day clinical practice is characterized by demanding and extraordinary job whereby the nature of work and experts’ role is changing from time to time. Even though the core responsibility of the professionals is patient care related, they also have a role in managing services as well as training (Gunn, & Taylor, 2014). Therefore, it is vital for Physicians to be informed on ethical and legal issues of the modern clinical practices, which permeate all aspects of their job. Thus, this paper is going to highlight and discuss some of the ethical and legal issues in clinical practice and ways to overcome challenging issues when making critical decisions.
Five bioethical principle to nursing practice
Firstly, the term nursing ethics insinuates to moral judgment and norms of conduct. Some particular principles of healthcare ethics must be adhered to in every situation:
Beneficence
Beneficence is one of the fundamental principles of executing a good job as well as patient advocacy. It entails one being compassionate and taking positive actions geared to helping others and the general desire to do good always. Therefore, it is important for every individual nurse to ensure that his or her patient receives superlative treatment so as to attain optimal results. For instance, if a patient in a nursing home fractures a hip, it is good that the nurse provide him or her with pain pills fast to relieve the pain.
Nonmaleficence
The term nonmaleficence implies that Nurses should always be competent in their field to avoid situations that may cause injury or suffering to patients. This is also the core principle of nursing ethics, and every health care expert is required to take this oath. It also involves reporting cases of suspected abuse. A good example is where an incompetent practitioner is not taking good care of patients. Therefore, a nurse should report such abuse to protect the client.
Autonomy
Freedom gives patients the right to independence, self-determination as well as the ability to self-direct. This means that patients should be entitled to make a decision on what should happen to them. As for this reason, adult patients have the right to either consent or refuse to treatment. Thus, nurses are expected to respect the customers’ wish, even when they do not concur with them.
Fidelity
This law opinions many this like loyalty, advocacy, truthfulness, fairness, and dedication to patients. Therefore, it is important that nurses maintain their commitments, based on their caring virtue. For instance, if a patient requests a nurse to keep his or her diagnosis from his family members, the nurse should do so by keeping it confidential.
Justice
The term justice implies that all clients need to be treated in an equal and fair manner. In their day-to-day duties, nurses face issues regarding justice as they take care of their patients. Therefore, this calls for them to make critical decisions on the amount of time they spend with each patient, making their needs to be paramount, and distributing resources fair.
In addition, Jonsen model tries to give precise meaning to what is expected from the bioethical principles of clinical practice. For one, the nurse should be able to give an account of the patient’s medical condition. For example, is the patient’s medical condition is, critical? Acute? Reversible? Emergent? The model emphasizes on patient preferences whereby the nurse is required to inform his or her client on risks and benefits so that he or she can understand to give consent. Also, the model addresses issues pertaining the quality of life. It tries to evaluate whether there are biases that may prejudice the client’s quality of life as well as the instances that may enhance or improve the patient’s quality of life (Gunn, & Taylor, 2014). Finally, the model looks at the contextual features for example, is there any business, professional interest that leads to a conflict of interest that may affect patients’ treatment.
ANA Code of Ethics
The codes were developed to help nurses carry out their roles to the expected quality in nursing cares as well as the ethical requirements of the practice. The first law requires that the nurse is respectful and compassionate in his or her duty. The primary commitment of the nurse should be to the client and not family or community. The nurse should strive to advocate and promote rights and safety of the patient. The nurse is always accountable and responsible for the practice and decides on the appropriate delegation of optimum patient care (Fortinash, & Holoday-Worret, 2008). Also, the nurse should ensure a conducive environment for quality health care among other codes.
Scope of Nursing Practice
ANA came up with an initiative of protecting registered nurses. This was meant to remove practice and geographic limitations for APRNs. The board is working hard to ensuring that Advanced Registered Nurses are both consistent and fair across the state and that the scope of their profession is not unfairly limited.
References
Gunn, J., & Taylor, P. (2014). Forensic psychiatry: clinical, legal and ethical issues. CRC Press.
Fortinash, K. M., & Holoday-Worret, P. A. (2008). Psychiatric mental health nursing. Mosby.
