Family Nurse Practitioner Ethical Dilemmas

A potential ethical dilemma that I could face in my chosen advanced nurse practice role as a family nurse practitioner is a large family that disagrees amongst themselves over whether to continue their mothers care. The situation is this: A mother of five children, divorced for over fifteen years, enters the hospital after suffering a massive stroke, was found unresponsive yet breathing in her yard by a neighbor. EMS was called and she was brought into the hospital and placed on advanced life support. The primary ICU physician and neurosurgeon are in agreement that the patient will not regain a significant amount of brain function. It has been a catastrophic injury without hope of recovery. The middle son arrives at the hospital first …show more content…
The patient could require a tracheostomy and peg tube placed for feedings. The patient would require a care facility that could manage a ventilator. This type of care would require a skilled nursing intervention. This scenario would play out in that each child would be given the opportunity to voice their opinion. It would take 100% agreement amongst the family. If the family could not reach a consensus, it would go to the legal system. According to Laabs (2012), “ethics education has had a positive influence on nurses’ moral confidence, moral actions, and use of ethics resources.” She also proposed a theory of Grounded Theory of Maintaining Moral Integrity in the Face of Moral Conflict. According to this theory, ethics knowledge and self-confidence in your abilities are some of the factors that can influence FNP in the primary care role that are managing ethical issues while maintaining a patients integrity. Carolyn Laabs research shows that ethics education for advanced practice nurses will be “effective in improving knowledge, confidence and behavior among RN’s and may possibly decrease the prevalence of moral