Nursing Code of Ethics

Running Head: NURSING CODE OF ETHICS
Nursing Code of Ethics
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NURSING CODE OF ETHICS 2
Nursing Code of Ethics
Introduction
Nurses support as well as enable groups, families and individuals to improve, restore, and
maintain their health status. They also care for and comfort individuals when their status of
health has deteriorated and has become irreversible. A conventional ideal of nursing is nurturing
and caring for human beings regardless of diagnosis, race, age, status religion, or any other
grounds. Nursing practices are guided by a code of ethics and principles which forms the basis of
how nurses should conduct themselves by making prudent decisions regardless of ethical issues.
Nursing code of ethics is vital as it ensures that patients and staffs are respected and treated with
dignity (American Nurses Association, 2015).
It should be noted that the study nursing ethics has led to significant concepts and
principles like autonomy, nonmaleficence and beneficence, fidelity and justice. It is prudent to
comprehend these concepts since they assist nurses with making decisions during difficult
circumstances and situations. When practising as a nurse, we normally face certain ethical
dilemmas which require prudent and wise counsel to manage. For instance, some common
nursing ethical dilemmas arise from informed consent, disclosing of medical conditions,
incompetence among the nurses and wider ethical issues.
My ethical dilemma
While working as a nurse in my local healthcare center, I faced an ethical dilemma that
required wise decision making. A patient by the name Mr Patrick who was 50 years old and had
been struggling with an opioid condition for the last six years came to the clinic with a broken
arm. After his arm was repaired surgically, the physician gave him acetaminophen, 650