Four Ethical Issues In Patient-Clinician Communication

Ethical Principles and Communication Justice, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and autonomy are four ethical principles that can be applied to issues in patient-clinician communication (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). Justice is to treat people fairly no matter their age, race, sex, or socioeconomic status (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). If a person comes to the emergency department with no insurance, we care for that patient just the same as if they had insurance. They will receive all the same testing, labs, and treatments. If their diagnosis is more severe and they need to be admitted, but they don’t have health insurance this would not stop them from being admitted. We also offer them financial aid papers to fill out for assistance. Beneficence is doing good for a person (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). When a patient needs a ride home, the nurse arranges transportation. Another example of beneficence is when a mother needs to go down for testing and a staff member sits with a young child in the mother’s room until she gets back. Nonmaleficence is to prevent harm (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). To prevent harm at work, I make sure side rails are up and a bed alarm is on. I also have patients wear use non-skid slippers when ambulating. Autonomy is ability to make own decisions (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). If a twenty-one year old female comes to the emergency department for physical abuse by her boyfriend. She has the right to decide if she wants the nursing staff to call law enforcement. …show more content…
A patient’s safety is impacted if communication fails. More medical errors are made due to communication ineffectiveness (Paget, et al., 2011). Communication is a must between patients, families, and other care staff for the best outcome for patients. Patient safety is impacted between team members by communicating fall risk, seizure precautions, medication patient takes and their