The Law Ethics Professional Guidelines in Nursing

Running head: THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
Introduction:
In the traditional health care setting, for the nursing facility, ethical judgements take
place occasionally and sometimes the nurse might witness ethical problems. In contrast, the
nurse takes ethical decisions in action for the care delivery, helping and patient support in
preparation of a proper care plan and given that safe patient healthcare (Butts & Rich, 2019).
There are total six ethical values which occurs frequently for the nurse; Autonomy,
Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Justice, Veracity and Fidelity. Privacy and security of patients
are closely tangled, focusing on law and ethics. Privacy protection and security requirements
rely on trust between the patients and the nursing facilities and healthcare professionals
(Bayoumi, Kamel & Fathalla, 2017). In this assignment, the ethical laws and its violations
will be discussed focusing on a case study. The case study is about a registered nursing
student, Dan, who is placed at My Local Hospital in Smith place, another registered nurse
named Jane and a blind patient, Fred who has some infection in his buttock. Dan is found
taking pictures of his buttock and advertising it to his friends and violating privacy of Fred.
Jane is found taking medicines without any supervision from the departmental medicine room
and due to her hangover she was working in unconscious state in the healthcare service. The
case study status about some situations where these ethics and laws were violated. The
assignment will also discuss about the transgressions and interventions to avoid such
situations and legal actions that will be imposed.
Discussion:
All of the transgressions and/or potential transgressions which have occurred in this case
study

2THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
In the above case study, it was clear that Jane was violating the ethical practice or was
going against the code of conduct, which has to be followed by the registered nurse (RN).
Various transgression was discovered in the case study. Transgression is defined as an act or
offence, which goes against the rule or law of nursing practice or code of conduct (Raby,
2018). Different ethical values or law is set up the government as code of ethics, which a
registered nurse must follow in their individual nursing practice. This code of ethics will
highlight the ethical responsibilities, commitments and responsibility of the registered nurse.
The nurse will understand the quality of practice, which is required by the nurse towards
competent, ethical and safe nursing care (Snelling, 2016). The Code of Ethics for Registered
Nurse is composed of eight different values, which is most significant for ethical nursing
practice. Transgressions performed by Jane in this case study included the violation of ethical
issues stated below (Cashin et al., 2017):
 Respect for person- Dan violated this ethical principle by not respecting the patient’s
confidentiality. The patient was blind and could not see that Dan took couple of
pictures of the patient’s wound in order to show it to his colleagues and friends. Dan
violated this major ethical principle leading to transgression.
 Fidelity- This ethical principle states that a nurse should be true and faithful towards
the patient following their professional responsibility to provide a high quality care.
Dan violated this principle as he was intentionally chatting with the patient just to
click her picture and his investigator left the room early handing over the situation to
Dan, which was highly unprofessional.
 Accountability- In this case study, Jane was violating this ethical principle. As Nurse
Jane as suffering from hangover she could not even think properly and Dan has to

3THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
remind her of every patient and their medication, which was highly unprofessional as
she was herself responsible for the accounted patient.
How does it violate the Australian Registered Nurse Standards for Practice, the Code of
Ethics for Nurses and the Code of Conduct for Nurses and justification for the choices and
by providing evidence and/or examples from the literature?
According to Australian Registered Nurse standards for practice, the code of ethics was
violated by the nurse in this case study. The Code of Ethics for Nurses in Australia was
developed in Australia following the nursing profession (NMBA, 2019). It is applicable to all
the levels of nurses outlining the commitment of the nurses towards their profession relating
to protect, respect, and promote the fundamental rights of the patient (Ralph, Birks &
Chapman, 2015). The above transgression lead to violation of the major code of ethics stating
that “Nurses value ethical management of information”.
This code of ethics involves both integrity and professionalism by respecting the privacy
and confidentiality of the patient without compromising on the safety or health of the patient.
Any personal information or data cannot be shared without an informed consent from the
patient or without their knowledge (Ingham, 2017). Ethical management of information states
that it is mandatory for the nurses to patient’s record and information to provide them with
best quality of care. Without any authorised information or consent, the nurses should not
disclose any personal information of the patient as it would violate the privacy and
confidentiality act of the patient. Irrespective of the medium, any type of data disclosure will
lead to an offensive act by the nurse, which can even result in withdrawing of their licence of
nursing practice (Johnstone, 2015).