Ethics and Professional Practices

Running Head: Ethics And professional Practices
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Ethics and professional
practices
7/30/2019
Student’s Name

Ethics And professional Practices 1
Similar to every other area of life, ethics is equally important in professional services.
These are the principles that define a difference between right and wrong for professionals. In the
case of medical practices, nurses as well as for other healthcare professionals use these principles
as their guide. Different moral principles are there in nursing that includes principles of
nonmaleficence, autonomy, accountability, veracity, and others (Claywell, 2014). Healthcare
professional should respect the rights of patients and should maintain dignity while performing
their duties.
These principles have a huge significance in practice as the same provides a manner of working
and influence their decision making. For instance, the principle of autonomy says that a patient
must have the right to take his/her medical and life decisions. On the other side principle of
nonmaleficence states that doctors and nurses must make no harms to the patient whether
intentionally or non-intentionally (Registerednursing.org, 2019).
In order to understand the importance of ethical principles in professional practices this is
to state that by using the same, professionals know their expected behavior. If these principles
would not be there, professionals will not be able to understand that what they should do in
regular practice as well as in a particular circumstance. These principles set a non-negotiable
standard of ethics (Online.emich.edu, 2018). Many of the times, professionals face ethical issue
or dilemma in their practices and in such a situation, ethical principles show them the correct
path. In a summarized way, this is to mention that these principles regulate the behavior of
professionals.
Informed Consent is an important ethical principle in the medical profession. It is a
process of communication between patient and doctor that often lead to permission for services

Ethics And professional Practices 2
or treatment. In other words, this is to state that before going ahead with any treatment,
healthcare professionals are required to let the patient know the requirement and consequences of
treatment and to take prior approval (Houtlosser & Rees, 2014). The principle is based on a
belief that the patient must be aware of every aspect of his/her health and has the right to decide
whether to take a particular medicine and treatment or not. Principle of informed consent is
based on the application of mutual decision-making. If patients are adult then medical
practitioners cannot start care unless the patient gives informed consent. Informed consent makes
sure that the patient is informed enough about his/her condition and the available option of
treatment and makes a well-informed decision. The information that is required to provide for
informed consent includes the name of the condition, recommended healthcare treatment,
expected benefits of treatment, the risk associated with the same, and risk, and benefits of other
options for instance not taking any treatment. In general, doctors have prescribed form and
format for informed consent. It consists of two parts namely information sheet and a consent
form. When practitioners use this format with their patient, the patient can be ensured that they
were properly informed. World health organization prescribes the standard format of informed
consent. The template is beneficial for medical practitioners as well as for patients as it gives
assurance to both of them (Who.int, 2019). The template includes some standard questions that
are required to be answered. In such a manner, one can check whether he had informed consent
or not.
Moving the discussion towards another ethical principle i.e. confidentiality in
professional practice, this is to mention that it becomes the duty of every professional to keep the
information of their clients secure. Being a professional, people often have personal data of their
clients that are required to be confident for their respect, dignity, and privacy issues. Different