Laws and Ethics in Health: Importance of Professional Conduct in Patient Care

Law and ethics in health
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LAWS AND ETHICS IN HEALTH
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Law and ethics in health
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Ethics in the medical field refers to the proper and moral way of conduct that all medical
professionals and nurses should uphold in the care of patients and medical practice. It involves
maintaining high standards of moral judgment and professional conduct. All nurses have a duty
to ensure that they provide the best care possible to their patient. In the process of care delivery,
there are various decisions that they have to make and this decisions may negatively or positively
impact a patient. Haggerty, (2016) states that the medical profession is regulated and governed
by a set of rules and obligations that care providers should observe in order to ensure patient
safety and positive health outcomes. These set of rules are self-governing and regulatory. These
rules that govern the way that nurses and other health professionals should behave are referred to
as codes of ethics.
Nurses find support for ethical decisions by referring to the ANA codes of ethics. Ethical
issues are the issues that surround and influence the way that medical professionals and nurses
perform their tasks and duties in the medical setting (Woods, 2016). Legal issues on the other
hand involve issues that regard the stipulated laws by the government concerning the nursing
profession. There are several laws that the government has put in place in order to ensure nurses
adhere to the correct way of medical practice and care delivery. These involves ensuring that all
nurses that are practicing have certified licenses before engaging in the provision of care to
patients. It also involves ensuring that nurses have undergone through the correct form of
education and have obtained the required levels of skills before engaging in practice (LAURIE,
Harmon & Dove, 2019). The government is also mandated to oversee the nursing profession and
ensure that nurses maintain high standards of professional practice. Failure to observe good
professional conduct and incompetency by nurses exposes them to litigation.