Ethical Dilemma in Nursing

Ethical issues happen when the choices need to be made, the answers may not be clear and the options might not be model. The result could be lessening in the quality of patient care, ambiguous clinical relationships, and significant agony, which is defined as knowing the right thing to do but not being allowed or being able to do it.

Nurse Manager, in specific, is exposed to these issues in nursing and moral distress because of their leadership and advising roles. Nurses and other medical staff look to them for appropriate and righteous decisions.

Before striding into the duty as a nurse manager, registered nurses (RNs) should understand the role of righteous decision-making plays in the daily basis work. The coursework not only covers the essentials of ethical nursing but inquires deep into disputed case studies, giving students the chance to examine a different way of thinking and develop interpretation skills.

Nurses’ code of ethics:

ANA embraced its first code of Ethics in 1950. Since then, it has sustained several alterations to compensate for advances and changes in research, technology, law, and complete challenges in nursing.

The instructions are divided into 9 supplies that cover topics that include human excellence, privacy, moral integrity, and healthcare as a right. ANA said that each of the provisions covers topics important to the challenges of nursing in the 21st century.

Daily, nurse managers face a profusion of decisions and must maintain righteous bravery to ensure the health, safety, and fortune of their patients and staff. They actively work toward resolving moral issues in nursing that they find in their establishment.

Examples of Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing:

The ANA Code of Ethics provides an ideal by which nurse managers can evaluate moral issues in nursing. However, the way it addresses ethical dilemmas can vary in different situations. 

One ethical dilemma that can occur in healthcare convenience is when nurses themselves are not properly outfitted to complete their assignments. Nurses who observe their collaborators’ lack of knowledge face an ethical dilemma of whether they should bring the issue to their nurse manager.

To help check this ethical dilemma, they can work hard to educate their nurses regarding the Code of Ethics as well as educate them regarding the Code of Ethics for their particular medical facility. They can also provide regular training for their nurses regarding persisting issues.

An example of common ethical dilemma nurses deal with is building boundaries with patients. Nurses and nurse managers present their careers to helping patients receive the care they need, so it can frequently be difficult to establish professional boundaries.

Patients should not rely on nurses beyond their professional competency and should not develop relationships with them. They can interfere in situations where righteous and professional outer limits are crossed by either patients or nurses.

Common Ethical Situations for Nurse Managers and Nursing Ethics Examples:

Yet nursing is a very fast-paced job with new challenges daily, many of them address facing similar ethical dilemmas. A current study found that the most commonly appearing and anxious moral situations are protecting patients’ rights, staffing, advanced care planning, and decision-making. 

Intensifying is a problem is a large number of unskilled nurses entering the field, many of those who have never faced moral issues in nursing. Such type of challenges makes experienced ones all the more critical to daily healthcare needs nationwide.

These are some of the common ethical situations that nurse managers’ face:

  • Honesty vs. withholding information: 

Family members might want to conceal medical information from sick patients to protect their mental state. However, its patients’ right to know about their medical conditions. 

Deciding how to share this information, especially if it goes against the family’s acceptance, can be a hypersensitive situation. ANA advocates for truth-telling, or authenticity, as a key aspect in nurse and patient relationships.

  • Science vs. spirituality:

Healthcare, which is science-based and results-driven, can delay interference and lifesaving procedure. Nurses focus on providing medical care to reduce suffering and to allow patients to concentrate on caring for themselves. 

For patients or their families with strong religious or divine convictions, the focus may be on complying with a strict set of instructions.

  • Health needs vs. resource allocation:

The rising cost of healthcare is progressively putting them at odds with budgeting pressure and the patients’ needs. A large number of medical facilities have insufficient resources, which leads the patients at high risk for not getting the required care. 

These resources range from medical equipment to the healthcare staff. Research suggests that nurse leaders must include staff in the budgeting process so that they can understand the needs and demands more clearly.

  • Autonomy vs. beneficence:

Nurses are required to manage prescribed medicine, but patients, at the same time, can deny them. Patient independence can go against medical instructions, regardless of clearly defined needs. 

ANA features that the nurses and the nurse manager need to understand patient backgrounds and individual assets to inform the patient of the medical essentiality.

  • How to deal with Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing:

Nurses endure many years of education and clinical training before they can become certified nurses, and yet, dealing with real moral issues in nursing can be far more complex than solving assumed issues in textbooks. Nurses can learn how to deal with the ethical dilemmas in the establishment through gaining experience and interacting with the patients’ overtime. 

Although nurses have great levels of understanding, it can be advantageous for them to establish professional boundaries with each of their patients at the outset of their careers. Whenever nurses struggle to identify whether something is righteous, they can study the ANA Code of Ethics.

Nurses can also be beneficial by surrounding themselves with distinctive nurses as well as experienced nurse managers. They can rely on the guidance of nurse managers when it comes to situations they may not know how to focus on. 

They can prepare educational environments, in which they regularly discuss moral issues with the nurses in their units. By having open dialogues about these issues, nurses can learn from the mistakes of others and can access ethical issues and challenges.

Final Words:

Ethical dilemmas will always be there in routine since there are different aspects, hypotheses, principles, opinions, and procedures. It is important though to make sure that the choice of course of action is not slightly based on an idea or opinion but well-informed and calculated judgments of a situation and the possible conclusion. 

Health workers must be guided by their ethical principles when making decisions or advising patients on issues affecting them and are possible ethical dilemmas. These instructions to act should not only be used to evaluate the best course of action during ethical dilemmas. They should also be used to make feedbacks and ensure a patient and the family successfully comes out of such a situation.


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