TENETS OF THE CODE OF ETHICS FOR NURSES

Running head: TENETS OF THE CODE OF ETHICS FOR NURSES
Tenets Of The Code Of Ethics For Nurses
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TENETS OF THE CODE OF ETHICS FOR NURSES
Abstract
The major responsibility in nursing profession is to the patients who require their care. The
nurses need to create an environment in which human rights, customs, spiritual believes and
values of individuals are respected when providing care. To create such environment, they need
to have various tenets code of ethics which include compassion, responsiveness, altruism among
others. This paper focuses on two of major codes of ethics that I will apply while taking care of
the patient. The codes of ethics covered in the article are advocacy to protect the right and
privacy of the patient and responsibility and accountability to provide optimum patient care.
Advocacy to protect rights and privacy of the patient
Patients’ rights are the basic conduct rules between the patient and the medical care provider and
they should be protected and respected. The main reason for this is because each individual
requires unique health care needs and the importance of respecting the dignity of the patient
(Butts J.B.,2016). This requires more than just educating the medical personnel only but also
educating the citizens about what to expect from their care providers. The patient privacy is the
right that the patient has to determine the extent their health information is shared. Patient
confidentiality forms one of significant pillars in nursing as it helps in creating a bond of trust
between the patient and the nurse. The trust is needed as it makes it easy for the patient to open
up to the care giver (Vaughn, 2015). I intent to keep the patient’s information safe and consult
the patient in case anyone requests for the information.to achieve this I need to use secure

TENETS OF THE CODE OF ETHICS FOR NURSES
methods to store the information. By protecting the patient rights and their privacy will will
create a bond of trust between me and the patients. This will make the patient feel free to open to
me about any problem they may be going through and my skills in nursing will increase.
Responsibility and Accountability
Responsibility in nursing refer to the moral and ethical obligations of nurses when dealing with
patients. These obligations relate to the care of the patient, integrity, collaboration with other
medical personnel and others. Nurses need to be responsible for they have to always accept
personal consequences for their actions. They should respect the patient despite their age, sex or
condition (Burnham, J.,2018). To do this they have to disregard their feelings and put that of the
patient first. On the other side, accountability means that the nurses need to justify all actions or
decisions they are involved in.in other words if a nurses accept any responsibility, they have to
be accountable for it (Frederickson & Rohr, 2015). As a nurse I intent to be as responsible and
accountable as possible in this profession. By doing this my relationship with my patients will
strengthen and accessing the patient will be easy.
Considering the fact that nurses work in a fast-paced, technical environment, they at times make
quick decisions about the patients’ health and care. Patients depend on their care therefore there
is need to earn the trust of patients to make them open up. This shows that nurses require codes
of ethics to achieve this.

TENETS OF THE CODE OF ETHICS FOR NURSES
References
Butts, J. B. (2016). Nursing Ethics, 4th Edition. [Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from
https://vsaccess.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284099096/
Frederickson, H. G., & Rohr, J. A. (2015). Ethics and public administration. Routledge.
Vaughn, L. (2015). Doing ethics: Moral reasoning and contemporary issues. WW
Norton & Company.
F Zahedi, et al., (The code of ethics for nurses) Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3712593/
West-Burnham, J., Wall, D., Coleman, M., & Bush, T. (2018). Mentoring and Continuing
Professional Development. In Mentors in Schools (1996) (pp. 121-143). Routledge.