Everyday nursing professionals are faced with ethical, moral, and legal dilemmas that impact patient care. Even greater challenges which involve ethical dilemmas with the availability of genetic testing. Through the years, government and professional agencies have evolved and created laws and practices on behalf of patients. The American Nurses Association has outlined specific professional boundaries and ethical obligations which are outlined in the Nursing Code of Ethics. These obligations include the responsibility to practice good judgment, alleviate suffering, and to promote healthy practices within the community, to name a few (p79). Nurses are to use the Code of Ethics as a guide for carrying out nursing responsibilities in a matter which is consistent with quality nursing care and the ethical obligations of the profession (ANA). To add to
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By acting on the uninformed sister’s behalf, this writer knows that a life could potentially be saved. Knowing this, the negative implications caused by telling the uninformed sister seem small. As a medical professional, the writer feels that saving someone’s life is of the utmost importance. From Mrs. Smith’s perspective, the medical professional is breaking a confidence which has been established over a twenty year period between the nurse and the patient. Due to the breach in confidentiality, Mrs. Smith will no longer have the trust to confide with the medical professional and thus ruining the nurse-patient relationship. Consequently, this will probably end Mrs. Smith’s twenty-year relationship with the medical practice. Furthermore, by revealing the positive genetic results with the uniformed sister will create a further divide in the family and make any sort of reconciliation very difficult. The uninformed sister would more than likely harbor deeper feelings of ill will knowing her sibling was willing to keep this information from
By acting on the uninformed sister’s behalf, this writer knows that a life could potentially be saved. Knowing this, the negative implications caused by telling the uninformed sister seem small. As a medical professional, the writer feels that saving someone’s life is of the utmost importance. From Mrs. Smith’s perspective, the medical professional is breaking a confidence which has been established over a twenty year period between the nurse and the patient. Due to the breach in confidentiality, Mrs. Smith will no longer have the trust to confide with the medical professional and thus ruining the nurse-patient relationship. Consequently, this will probably end Mrs. Smith’s twenty-year relationship with the medical practice. Furthermore, by revealing the positive genetic results with the uniformed sister will create a further divide in the family and make any sort of reconciliation very difficult. The uninformed sister would more than likely harbor deeper feelings of ill will knowing her sibling was willing to keep this information from