Law, Ethics, and Professional Guidelines for Nursing Practice

Running head: LAW, ETHICS, AND PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES FOR NURSING
PRACTICE
Law, Ethics, and Professional Guidelines for Nursing Practice
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LAW, ETHICS, AND PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES FOR NURSING PRACTICE 1
Law, Ethics, and Professional Guidelines for Nursing Practice
The onset of social media and its impact on medical professionalism cannot be ignored.
While it is true that social media usage has created opportunities for nurses and practitioners in
the healthcare sector, this platform has also created adverse impact on issues of privacy and
security. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has set regulatory
measures for nurses and medical practitioners with the goal of safeguarding professionalism and
maintaining safety of data and privacy of patients. In spite of these measures being in place, there
are cases where nurses fail to meet the standards and regulatory measures set by the regulatory
agencies. This paper discusses the case study of Dan, a registered nursing student in the fifth day
of his first-year placement at a local hospital. The paper discusses ethical considerations, legal,
and professional issues related to the case and concludes by offering a recommendation on what
Dan could have done.
Dan committed several transgressions which are against the nursing profession as
regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). The first transgression is
the taking of the patient’s pictures of the wound. This is a transgression against the AHPRA and
attracts legal penalties. It is also unethical for the registered nurse to have taken the photos of the
patient, even when he was excited about his job. According to Bode (2015), Dan breached the
privacy and trust of the patient. The patient in this case was blind. According to the case study,
Dan chatted with the patient and took the photos of the wound. This is disrespectful and breach
of trust and confidence in the medical profession.
The second transgression is the decision to post the photos of the wound of the patient on
social media. AHPRA (2019) has set regulatory standards that prohibit taking or sharing photos
of patients on social networking sites. The responsibility of the healthcare provider is to

LAW, ETHICS, AND PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES FOR NURSING PRACTICE 2
safeguard the welfare of the patient both physically and emotionally. Nurses are prohibited from
distributing or sharing private information with their friends or relatives. In this case, the
registered nurse shared the photos with his friends who are also nursing students. This is a breach
of trust and confidence in the profession, in addition to a breach of fiduciary duty. The nurse has
a duty of holding his patients with dignity and respect they deserve. The Australian Medical
Association (AMA) (2019) explains that photos of patients have the same protection like the
personal and private information of patients. As a result, Dan did not have to share the photos
with his friends. Additionally, even if he wanted to take the photos, he did not have a moral right
to share them on social media or with his friends because the information belonged to the client
and had to be treated with utmost privacy it deserved.
The third transgression is the embarrassing of the patient by disclosing his name on the
social media. According to the case study, Dan posted that “...Poor blind Freddie...” It is easy
for anyone that knows about Fredie to access the information from social media and use it
against the patient. Additionally, the Australian Government Department of Health (2019)
prohibits healthcare professionals from misusing or distributing private information about their
patients. In this case, the registered nurse, although still new in the profession, did not have to
disclose the private information about the patient or the name of the patient to the third party.
Once the name of the patient has reached third party sites like the social media platform, it
becomes impossible to control the flow of the information. This is especially because the social
media platforms do not have laws that regulate sharing of information. Anyone with access to
this information can misappropriate it and this can easily lead to disrespect and demeaning of the
hospital.

LAW, ETHICS, AND PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES FOR NURSING PRACTICE 3
Dan’s transgression of taking the photo of the patient’s wound and posting it on
Facebook violates the Australian Registered Nurse Standards for Practice, the Code of Ethics for
Nurses and Code of Conduct. From the ethical point of view, The Australian Registered Nurse
Standards for Practice requires that the registered nurse respects the fiduciary duty he has
towards the patient and the dignity of the student. The message attached to Dan’s post is
demeaning and does not show respect to the patient. Additionally, the code of conduct for nurses
in Australia requires that nurses take responsibility for their actions because they are representing
the entire profession (Beltran et al., 2016). According to NAMB (2019), a similar case was
handled by the Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia where a nurse shared the private
information of the patient that was receiving care in the hospital to her sister. The tribunal
charged the registered nurse for professional misconduct and failure to promote the trust and
privilege that govern the relationship between nurses and patients receiving care in hospital
setting.
Westrick (2017) discusses some of the restrictions set forth by the code of conduct for
nurses in Australia. Some of the areas that the professional and ethical code of conduct prohibits
include description of the patient on social media, sharing the room numbers of patients,
uploading photos or videos of patients receiving care, and disclosing the names of patient on
social media. Cashin et al. (2017) explains that these transgressions are pronounced among
young nurses who spend a lot of time exposed to social media. The primary concern is that
nurses fail to strike a balance between social life and e-professionalism. E-professionalism
requires that the registered nurse treats the patient with high regard and dignity just like one
could do when dealing with the patient (Donna & Sharlene, 2017). Cashin et al. (2017) also