Nursing and Ethics - The palliative care

Running Head: NURSING AND ETHICS
Nursing and Ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

The palliative care is the approach through which the patients’ quality of life is improved
along with their families who are facing problems connected with the life threatening illness. It is
important as it provides the patients with an option for the pain and the management of
symptoms with higher quality of the life while pursuing of some curative measures. In this
reflective essay, I will deal with the case study of John who is a 20 year old aboriginal Torres
Strait islander living with the end stage of the renal disease or ESRD. I am a registered nurse
who is looking after John and I will also take care of the ethical decision making the cultural
aspect of the palliative care and also represent impact on my own profession directions and the
strategies use for managing this.
John lives in a remote indigenous community and admitted to hospital that is within 500
km from his house. John is under dialysis in the hospital and the health care team has advised
that he needs to maintain this current health status. John also has been told by the medical team
that he is not expected in surviving more than 3 months on a dialysis. John has further decided
that he wants to return home with no treatment further. The doctors have also advised him that
the expectancy of his life will be much shorter if he stops this statement.
I believe in this situation, the comfort care is extremely important because the comfort
care is actually a patient care plan which is concentrated on the symptom control, the quality of
life and the pain relief. It is also administered to the patients who have been hospitalized several
times and advised to take out the medical treatment system. It is also an essential part of the
medical care at the end of life system provided to people specially for who are suffering from a
serious type of illness and care in four areas such as the mental, the physical, spiritual and
emotional issues (Coyne, Mulvenon & Paice, 2018).
Since the patient aboriginal Torres state Island, there are few cultural aspects before,
during and after a person's death. For example, because of lack of proper education and training
the individual communities have lots of faith on the Healthcare workers and they want to spend

the last days of their lives being surrounded by their own people. They have a strong preference
for living with the community and with the family (Carvajal et al., 2019).. Family members
usually want to be with their loved ones and fulfill their wishes consisting of finding ways to
support a person die at home. The theory of dying at home and being cared at home is one of the
most significant themes of the indigenous people where their families hold ceremonies and
rituals practiced at the end of life rendered as important. Therefore, I believe that the view points
of the community people should also be respected and made arrangements for them to live with
their communities, the families and kin so that they gain energy and peace of mind.
Since John is fighting with chronic renal disease and there are zero chances of his
recovery and he is going to die within few days either in a hospital or at home, we should respect
his decision to go home and spend the last days of his life there. According to my views, the
nurses and the physician encounter difficulties in their practices and they need a proper
understanding of the ethical principles along with the precedents. There is a wide range of the
ethical dilemmas along with the medical issues arising in the provision of the palliative care.
However, a good understanding of the medical ethics can help in contributing to the decision
making and the help in making the practice of medicine smooth (Ivers et al., 2019).
Notably, the nurses are always confronted with complex concerns through their practices
and the code of ethics is the fundamental of guidance for the nursing like other profession. There
are some authentic International codes of ethics for the nurses and international code suggest that
there should be assistance provided for the nurses in their care of the patients (Thompson et al.,
2019). As per the national code of ethics for the nurses, the nurses are responsible in providing
the clients with high quality care (Lewis, 2019). The nurses have the responsibility within their
career limit that they should make decisions and act founded on the professional values they
have. The values are also the intrinsically valuable concepts which can be defined as a
foundation by which a community or an individual selects the criteria of right or wrong. As per