Legal and Ethical Issues in Healthcare Practice

Running head: PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Professional Practice
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE1
Introduction
Every day, nurses, relatives and health practitioners experience ethical and legal
choices. These challenging dilemmas may include medical procedures, procedures, patient
governance and other issues that occur in the healthcare practice. Ethical issues in
the healthcare practice can require instant reaction, such as creating choices for clients when
they are unable to do so and can involve prolonged action and active decision (Cherry &
Jacob, 2016). As the hazards and advantages of CAM and its communication with allopathic
drugs are deeper known, numerous ethical and legal problems are posed. In addition, latest
developments in law, academic exercise, health policy and business have concentrated focus
on the interaction between supplementary and the conventional medicine and the functions
and duties of medical practitioners (Humber & Almeder, 2013). This study discusses the
potential legal and ethical issues in the healthcare practices and the way to mitigate the issues.
This paper highlights on the legislation and the code of medical ethics, which needs to
applied for reducing the legal and ethical issues.
Identification of the potential issues (legal/ ethical)
Health service practitioners continue to experience ethical and legal problems at the
workforce, placing them at danger of burn-out (Gunn, Taylor & Hutcheon, 2014). Efforts to
reduce health care expenses are putting growing stress on employees to do too much. Limited
resources are forcing hard decisions in the performance of treatment. Patient safety may be
impaired, leading in accident and prosecution. Bioethicists propose that when medical
practitioners exercise ethical principles of the autonomy, fairness, doing great and doing no
damage can assist wellness workers to solve challenging circumstances.
Ethical decisions sometimes take place for the practitioner in traditional medical
practice, and sometimes the practitioner can face ethical dilemmas. On the other hand, the

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prison practitioner can experience ethical circumstances on a weekly basis. The psychiatric
practitioner takes ethical choices about the distribution of treatment, trust and patient support
in the preparation and distribution of secure customer service (Faden et al., 2013). Six ethical
standards that often emerge for a nurse working in a prison environment are as follows:
 Respect for individuals (independence and self-determination)
 Beneficence (doing right)
 Non-malfeasance (preventing damage)
 Justice (justice, honesty, truthfulness)
 Truthfulness (saying the reality)
 Fidelity (staying loyal to one's engagement)
These guidelines act as a manual for practitioners to make ethical choices. The
psychiatric practitioner can discover assistance for ethical choices by speaking to a code of
conduct and ethics of the Healthcare practice (Hall, Orentlicher, Bobinski, Bagley & Cohen,
2018). The Code sets out ethical norms for practitioners across all environments, stages and
functions, sets expectations and provides advice.
The legal consequences of healthcare practice are linked to licensure, government and
national legislation, the range of exercise and the public believe that practitioners exercise at
a strong skilled level. Nurse training, licensing and training standards provide the structure
under which nurses are supposed to exercise. When the operation of a practitioner drops
below reasonable norms of service and expertise, it exposes the nurse to litigation.
Litigation may be based on negligence, failure to practice the amount of treatment that
a decent, prudent doctor would have under comparable conditions, malpractice, and
professional negligence and that is an offense of neglect undertaken in the position of a
practitioner (Herring, 2014). Failure and committee will also be susceptible to the litigation

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and the professional licensing assessment by the practitioner. Both dispute and qualified
permit assessment may lead in a reprimand of a practitioner's permit or a reduction of a
permit.
Correctional nurses may be particularly susceptible to the litigation as the population
of detention patients has a legislative right to health care. As a result, inmates-patients meet
practitioners more than any other form of health care staff. Failure to provide the patients
with exposure to the health care for satisfying their severe medical requirements may be
treated as intentional disregard.
Appropriate legislation and association’s code of ethics (400)
A copy of a declaration needs to be provided to every applicant while making
the application for the registration pursuant to the provisions of the Act and needs to
be submitted duly signed declaration as set out in the rules of the healthcare practice. The
candidate should certify that he or she has written and decided to do so. The Code of Ethics,
which clarifies the tasks and duties of the industry and offers advice to the practitioner on
prevalent ethical issues. Ethical standards can encourage the principles of collaboration and
cooperative practice. Finally, ethical norms in medical practice encourage other significant
personal and cultural principles, such as personal accountability, animal freedoms and patient
welfare, to comply with the legislation, laws and patient security (Francer et al., 2014). The
increasingly recognized appreciation of a Certified Practitioner in the Healthcare Quality and
the changes in the healthcare practice has led to a fresh recognition of the vital position of
healthcare professionals.
The responsibilities and duties of the practitioner in general:
 Character of the Practitioner