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Assignment on Ethical Practices of Nurses

   

Added on  2020-05-11

11 Pages3578 Words75 Views
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LEGAL AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICAL ISSUES IN NURSINGTable of ContentsINTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................1Case Analysis.............................................................................................................................................1Roles and Responses for Nurses...........................................................................................................1Legal and professional issues Raised....................................................................................................2Lack of effective communication........................................................................................................2Observation recording and documentation..........................................................................................2Provision of Quality Practice...............................................................................................................3Creative and Critical Thinking Ability................................................................................................4Professional Mandate..........................................................................................................................5CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................6REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTIONEthics refers to the moral principles, morals and values that are set to guide and govern a certain specific group of people (Sadeghi and Khamarnia, 2011). A law is a system or rules and regulations that are created by society or group leaders (e.g. government) and are officially enforced to the people to govern and regulate their behavior and actions. In Australia, RegisteredNurses are thenurses that have basically passed through a nursing school, obtained training and graduated after passing the national licensing examination from that specific country (Lartey, 2014). These nurses are trained to provide professional health care and medication services to patients in hospitals and especially those that have already been discharged from hospital but stillcare and regular observations. Additionally, they are responsible for educating patients as well astheir relatives on various health processes and procedures. Besides educating the patients and their relatives, nurses in Australia alsotrain the community or society members about different diseases, health care and medical processes and services that can be easily practiced (White and Scott, 2015). With that in mind, it is important for every registered nurse to be completely aware and conscious of their roles and responsibilities in a health institution (Durham, 2015). This is simply because the nurses are in charge of the patients and therefore should be held accountable of their practices and actions leading to any kind of result.In this case study, the nurses are in charge of a child’s life but did take that responsibility as serious as they should. My assignment is going to discuss the ethical practices the nurses in the case study should have abided by, relating them to the actions made by the nurses.Case AnalysisRoles and Responses for NursesRegistered nurses often work in hospitals and other outpatient health institutions whereby they provide services and support to the doctors and care for the patients. These nurses are responsiblefor administering patient medications (Huynh et al, 2016), cleaning the patients and changing their beddings, observing and monitoring patient’s condition especially when the doctor is not around, maintaining patient records and communicating with the doctors among other things. In addition to that, the registered nurses are supposed to provide emotional support to the patient’s relatives as well as to the patients. However, not all nurses carry out all these duties. Nurses with

higher education levels are given other duties like helping surgeons during operations, basically these duties vary depending on the level and type of patient care required.Legal and professional issues RaisedLack of effective communicationJust as mentioned earlier, nurses are responsible for sharing information about a patient’s condition with the doctors responsible. Technically, nurses are the ones that spend more time with the patients than the doctors and therefore have the opportunity to see changes in the health conditions of the patient than doctors. Additionally, nurses are supposed to make regular patient checkups and observations to ensure that they are getting better or rather not getting worse (Pirinen et al, 2015).Work IssueIn the case study, there was a complaint on lack of effective communication. The nurses were accused of not providing effective communication channel between them and the pediatrician, i.e. perhaps they failed to call, email, or provide physical information on what the observations and diagnosis of the child was. The nurses failed to share important information with the pediatrician which meant that the doctor did not have enough information to treat the child. In this case, the nurses failed to adhere to the code and ethic on effective and efficient communication between the nurses and the doctors. When the nurses do not share information about the health condition of the patient with the doctor, then it will a longer time for the doctor to point out and realize the real problem with the patient (Ridling et al, 2016). In the health sector, communication is a key aspect because it involves sharing information with the common goal of saving human life. However, due to lack of effective communication, the child in this case study ended up dead simply because the doctor could not point out the problem earlier and did not receive any information from the two nurses. This was, the nurses broke the code ethics and failed to provide satisfactory professional practice.Observation recording and documentationIt is always sensible for a patient’s health records to be kept safe in case of future reference. In most health institutions, nurses are the ones that make patient observations, e.g. body temperature measurements and other changes in a patient’s health condition which is basically a

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