Role of the Nurse
Role of the Nurse
Nurses are usually committed to showing respect to the dignity of every patient and foster the freedom of the patient to make choices to receive what they are entitled. Patients should be treated with worth and dignity considering the differences and the special needs of every patient. The nurse should respect the patient regardless of their personal character, social economic status, or the nature of illness (Rich, K & Butts, J 2012).
In order to ensure the respect, the nurses are required to make decisions through a process of reasoning that incorporates clinical observations, professional judgment and practical matters of technical practicability. During the reasoning process, the nurses have to ensure that the chosen approach does not go against the moral principle that should be considered when assessing an ethical dilemma.
Law binding nurses
Law is the rule of action or conduct that is prescribed, or recognized as binding or it has been enforced by a controlling authority. The laws that nurses have to bind with include criminal law and civil law. Criminal law involves crimes that are against the state. A criminal act can be classified as a misdemeanors or felony. Felony is a crime that is punished by imprisonment in a state prison for more than a year of death (Rich, K & Butts, J 2012). Examples of felony include practicing medicine with no license, abuse, and attempted murder. Misdemeanors are crimes that are less serious than a felony. The crimes are punishable by fines or 1 year or less imprisonment.
Civil law is crimes against a person. In these laws, a person can sue another person. The judgment of the court on cases concerning civil laws usually requires payment of money to the individual who has been injured. Civil law includes torts, which is a civil wrong that is committed against a person that causes physical injury. Torts can be intentional or unintentional. In intentional torts, the law normally allows the injured person to seek resolution in a civil suit. Intentional torts include assaults, defamation of character, battery, invasion of privacy, fraud, and false imprisonment.
In the nursing practice, unintentional torts are extremely common. These are acts that are not intended to causing any harm, but they are usually committed without reasoning or with disregard to consequences (Rich, K & Butts, J 2012). Negligence is one of the acts, which is charged when the nurse does not perform an act that a reasonable person would have performed. In the principle of negligence, civil liability normally exist in cases that the act is judicially determined as being wrong. Nurses become liable when their conduct is determined as being malpractice, which is the negligent delivery of the professional services.
Ethical issues in nursing
Ethics deals with moral judgment and standards of conduct. In health care, the key principle of ethics that should be upheld in all situations is autonomy, nonmaleficience, justice, and beneficence. In autonomy, the nurse allows the patient to maintain values, character, and uniqueness despite the values of the nurse (Smallman, S et al 2004). The nurse normally helps the patient tom understand the extent, nature, and the possible outcomes of the treatment.
This will enable the patient to make decisions on health care based on the information that they are provided with. It is the responsibility of the nurse to provide information to the patient and also to evaluate the understanding of the patient on the information so that to satisfy the moral obligation of maintaining the autonomy of the patient. Nurses are supposed to respect the wishes of the patients even if they do not support them.
In beneficence, it is the moral obligation of the nurse to do well, and it is the right of the patient to derive some benefit from the good. The obligation includes reducing the risk of harm and preventing harm (Smallman, S et al 2004). The nurse should provide the client with information that will help them reduce the risk of harm or prevent the occurrence of harm. This is through making informed choices on the best approach. In nonmaleficience, the moral of the nurses is avoiding harm to the patient.
The primary goal, of the nurse is to the patient. It is not accepted for a nurse to ignore the treatment that is supposed to protect the well being of the patient. Justice requires that all patients to be treated fairly and equally. There are many justice issues that nurses have to face in their daily work. When they are organizing the care for patients and deciding on time to be spent on each needs of the patient, and also a fair distribution of resources.
Nurses are supposed to distinguish between their professional ethics and their personal values. Professional ethics involves the principles which have universal application and standard of conduct that should be upheld in all situations. Personal values are the values that nurses hold true and significant to themselves.
Legal issues in nursing
Some of the legal issues that nurses face in their career include nurse practice acts, licensing, and the standards of care. The issue that most concerns the nursing career are malpractice and negligence. Negligence is the act of omission. This is not doing something that a prudent and reasonable person would have done. It can also be an act of the commission, which is doing something a reasonable person would have not done. Malpractice is regarded as negligence by a professional (Curtis, J & Benjamin, M 2010). In order to prove malpractice, there are four elements that are required.
The first element is the duty, which is a legal obligation that is owed by one person to another. Nurses assume the duty to care for patients in a diligent and competent way. Nurses should adhere to the standards of care set by the state board of nurses. The second element is breach where a breach of duty normally occurs when the nurses fail to fulfill the duties that have been established as their responsibilities. This occurs when the nurse does not meet the correct standard of care.
Causation is the third element that means that the failure of the nurse to meet the correct standards of care caused injury to the patient or adverse outcome. Damages is the forth element that are monetary payments that are designed to compensate the patient for the injury or adverse outcome. Damages intent to restore the patient to the condition they were in before the injury (Posgar, G 2013). In order to recover the damages, the patient has to establish the financial, physical, or emotional injury caused by the nurse due to violation of the standards of care.
Reference
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