Legal and Ethical Issues in Nursing: Role of Effective Communication Patterns and Process

Running head: MEDICAL-SURGICAL NURSING 1
MEDICAL-SURGICAL NURSING
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MEDICAL-SURGICAL NURSING 2
MEDICAL-SURGICAL NURSING
Introduction
Ethics in nursing is an important area of focus in contemporary nursing practice. In acting
in accordance with their professional code of conduct, nurses are expected to protect the rights of
patients, maintain their dignity and respect them. In addition, they are also required to create an
environment of respect and mutual trust between healthcare professionals and their patients.
Standards of practice for the registered nurses are set to enable the provision of a safe, ethical
and competent care for patients through the setting of nursing profession practice requirements
(Canadian nurses association, 2017). The nurse’s code of ethics came into existence to guide the
nurses when executing their duties to achieve quality care in nursing and ethical obligations in
the profession. The set standards in the profession help in the development of an environment
that allows nursing care of the highest level of quality are practiced. A nurse using this set
standards has to display quality by documenting the nursing process in an ethical, accountable
and responsible manner. Effective communication is a key component in the management of a
patient in the hospitals as this helps in creating an awareness of what is happening to both the
patients and the clinical staff. Lack of effective communication is a leading cause of death due to
preventable medical errors (zwitter, 2019). By recent studies, it is possible to reduce this death
by enhancing communication in the nursing profession resulting in fewer medical errors and
desirable patient outcomes. Communication patterns which provide links of how information
should flow in an organization are very important about efficiency in work, who is responsible
towards whom and who talks to whom. This patterns if effectively applied in the practice of care
then quality care to patients is guaranteed as the medical staff, nursing staff and the residential
staff all know their specific roles in the patients care (Kavanagh & Szweda, 2017). This essay

MEDICAL-SURGICAL NURSING 3
will discuss the legal and ethical issues in the nursing profession and the role of effective
communication patterns and process in the provision of care by the nurses.
On Monday when the general practitioner examined Mr. Bb and diagnosed him with
umbilical hernia and constipation due to the symptoms he was experiencing, was a wrong
diagnosis. The registered nurse had examined Mr. Bb on Sunday and prescribed Movicol to rule
out constipation which is also wrong because she did not take a good history from him.
According to the registered nurses standard of practice, she should have carried out a
comprehensive assessment by applying several assessment techniques to systematically collect
relevant and accurate information and data that would then inform her practice. Lack of adequate
information from the residential staff results to the nurse failing to make a decision that best suits
Mr. Bb. The registered nurse fails to put into practice principle two found in the code of conduct
for nurses by not taking a person-centered approach in the management of Mr. Bb. She did not
take the reasonable steps required in ensuring that the person to whom she was delegating to
have the qualifications, knowledge, experience or skills that are required to provide the care
needed. The registered nurses action was therefore a violation of nursing code of practice.By
failing to consider the skills and qualifications of the person she was delegating to,she willingly
failed to protect the safety of Mr. Bb. In addition, through her action, she failed to take
responsibility for the care she was providing to Mr Bb.
No contact had been made to Mr. Bb’s family members to inform them of his current
condition. According to the nursing code of practice, nurses are instructed that they should have
a shared responsibility in the decision making process and therefore advised to involve the
family, nominated partners or friends in this process. In this case, his family was not informed of
what Mr. Bb was experiencing but were only called when he was almost dying. This violated the