Report on Professional Responsibilities of Nurses in ICU Setting

This report delves into the professional responsibilities of nurses, emphasizing ethical and moral obligations within the healthcare setting, particularly in the context of an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). It highlights the importance of nurses' roles, including medical history recording, teamwork, and patient health monitoring. The report focuses on the challenges and responsibilities faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the need for effective communication, teamwork, and innovative techniques. Key findings include the importance of professional knowledge for new graduate nurses and the significance of adapting to remote patient monitoring. The report references several studies on nursing ethics, professional competencies, and duty of care, providing a comprehensive overview of the subject.

REGISTERED NURSE
PROFESSIONAL
RESPONSIBILITY

INTRODUCTION
• Professional responsibility as applied to nurses refers to the ethical and moral obligations permeating the nursing
profession.
• There are various roles which nurses needs to be performed by nurses while taking care of patients, it includes
recording medical history, collaborating with team and monitoring patient’s health conditions.
• Present case study is based on nurse’s role which they perform in intensive care unit while treating patients suffering
from COVID-19.
• Professional responsibility is selected as the topic as it provides competent level of care in each phase of nursing
process.
• Standards based on professional practice are important as it assists in promoting clinical practice.

CRITICAL EVALUATION
• In the opinion of Kelly et.al., (2017) nurses has a
choice to respond, and they have a right to not
respond if they feel unsafe in a situation or even
they can back out if there is unavailability of
personal protection equipment’s or there is a lack of
support for in meeting out nurses personal and
family needs.

KEY FINDINGS
• When a graduate nurse enters the workforce during the time of pandemic, it is
really necessary that they have knowledge of their professional responsibility
and also they need to perform it when nurses are addressing patients.
• It has been analysed that they need to focus on team work and to make use of
innovative techniques and measures which can assist them in analysing
patient’s condition remotely.

STRATEGIES
• Effective communication is one of the most important technique
which can be used by nurses while treating patients during time
of pandemic.
• In this nurses can be engaged in interacting with physicians and
other team members so that proper and adequate care can be
provided to patient as they are the only connection between their
families and patient

REFERENCES
• Beuthin, R., Bruce, A., & Scaia, M. (2018, October). Medical assistance in dying (MAiD): Canadian nurses’ experiences. In
Nursing forum (Vol. 53, No. 4, pp. 511-520). DOI:10.1136/bmj.m3898
• Dowie, I. (2017). Legal, ethical and professional aspects of duty of care for nurses. Nursing Standard.32. doi:
10.7748/ns.2017.e10959
• Harkin, D. W. (2020). Covid-19: balancing personal risk and professional duty. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online). 369.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.m1606
• Santos, A. P. A., Camelo, S. H. H., Santos, F. C. D., Leal, L. A., & Silva, B. R. D. (2016). Nurses in post-operative heart surgery:
professional competencies and organization strategies. Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP. 50(3). 474-481.
DOI:10.1146/jmk.m3898
• Schmidt, B. J., & McArthur, E. C. (2018, January). Professional nursing values: A concept analysis. In Nursing forum (Vol. 53,
No. 1, pp. 69-75). doi: 10.7754/ns.2018.e10959