Legal and professional issues PDF

Running head: LEGAL AND PROFESSIONAL ISSUES
LEGAL AND PROFESSIONAL ISSUES
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

LEGAL AND PROFESSIONAL ISSUES1
Introduction:
The facts presented by case study reveals a number of important factors that govern
the procedure of ethical decision making in the nursing profession. The provided case study
reveals the testimony of Tom who witnessed the misconduct of two nursing aides. The two
nursing aides were extremely impolite and aggressive towards the dementia patients who
were unable to follow the instructions dispensed by them. Tom being aware of the fact that
the nursing aides were involved in misconduct hesitated to register a complaint them to the
nursing manager because the manager had good relation with the employees. Based on the
facts collected it can be said that the professionals violated the four principles of non-
maleficence, beneficence, patient autonomy and justice. This assignment aims to analyse and
discuss the ethical issues violated in the case study and the implication of ethical guidelines
on nursing.
Ethical Issues:
The ethical issues that have been witnessed to be violated in the case study includes
episodes of non-maleficence, beneficence, patient veracity and fidelity. It has been mentioned
that the nursing aides pinched and hit the Dementia patients who were not able to carry out
the instruction of the nursing professionals. This can be identified as an episode of the
violence of non-maleficence. Non-maleficence refers to the act of doing no harm. The
nursing profession has been considered to be the most novel profession that deals with
serving the diseased patients in the most compassionate manner. Under the ethical issue of
non-maleficence it is expected that care providers would not indulge in any form of violence
or inflict any harm to the patients (Arnold & Boggs, 2015). It is also expected that the carers
would be thoroughly aware of the reporting laws and the consequent steps that would follow
after reporting. It should be critically noted here that apart from the nursing aides who

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violated the ethical conduct of non-maleficence by inflicting harm to the Dementia patients,
Tom also violated the conduct by not reporting the issue to the nursing manager.
The next instant of ethical violation was the violation of beneficence. Beneficence
refers to the act of taking positive decisions and doing good to the patients in order to prevent
any possibility of causing harm (Butts, 2015). In this context it should be mentioned here that
the concerned patients are affected with dementia which is a mental illness characterized by
impaired retention power. Further, the patients are also incapable of preventing themselves
from any form of harm, abuse or neglect and hence care givers should engage in providing a
holistic care to the patient by taking care of the beliefs, feelings and preferences of the patient
and the immediate family members (Lillemoen & Pedersen, 2013). Further, Tom witnessed
the entire episode and was aware of the fact that the ethical principles of the profession was
being violated and still chose to keep quiet. This instance can be identified as a violation of
the conduct of veracity which requires professionals to be honest in the profession.
According to Doherty and Purtilo (2015) it has been mentioned that nursing
professionals must comply with the standards of the profession and stand for honesty true to
the integrity of the profession. According to Grace (2017), it has been stated that fidelity
refers to the existing relationship between the professional and the patient. According to the
ethical standards of the nursing profession, nursing professionals should engage in the
process of providing effective care to the patients based upon a positive patient centred
approach (Shahriari et al., 2013). However, the case study clearly revealed that the nursing
aides in the case study failed to establish a positive patient centred approach with the
dementia clients and did not care about adapting a patient-centred or an effective family
centred care approach.