The nursing profession is burdensome but fulfilling work as it encompasses the totality of human being. In view of many people, nursing is all about caring the sick. They think that nurses are confined in the area of giving medication, taking vital signs and reporting to physicians, nothing more. What they believe is just a fraction of what we nurses are doing, as we deal not only with the physical but as well as the emotional, social wellbeing, spiritual, and other facets of life. In caring a person (sick or well), nurses carefully obey certain principles, like being an advocate and observation of patients’ rights in promotion of life. We nurses also experience dilemma as regards with ethical issues and act accordingly to protect the
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With this in mind, we embrace the need of following certain ethical principles. Autonomy is one of those ethical principles. We understand that patients have all the rights to decide for themselves unless in times when they are incapable of doing it like for example, a mentally-ill client or those who suffered from brain trauma that greatly affect their state of mind. As advocates, as long as the client is within the legal age and are able to decide for themselves, we respect their autonomy. One of the ways in promoting autonomy is the informed consent where clients are informed of the procedures to be taken, the risks, the possible outcome and some alternatives where they can either accept or refuse freely. It is also part of their right to be informed and be educated in the care that they will receive as we cater their health needs. As for the minors and mentally-ill patients, it is almost the next of kin who sign the informed consent and in some cases parentalism is being followed where the health professional does the decision making. A problem to be avoided in the observance of patient autonomy is when we nurses assume that the patients has the same values and goals as ours that might lead to wrong conclusions. Secondly, nurses should also aware that every person has different thought processes. For …show more content…
A classic example to adhere with these principles is during giving immunization, although intramascular injection will produce pain, the benefit is far more rewarding since it will protect the children from acquiring certain diseases that might lead to severe illness or death. In some sense, even though initially, we cause pain, in the long run we prevent further more devastating harm to the immunized child by giving them protection from potentially deadly diseases. In the hospital setting, safety is a major part in our health care delivery system and as nurses who are with the patients 24/7, we play a major role. Assuring the safety of our patients from admission until they are discharges is our responsibility. This can be achieved by some simple actions like, proper transfer of patients, accurate assessment, securing the side rails, following the rights of medication and honest health education, and failure to do so will produce harm to them. A problem that might occur while observing these principles is when we fail to recognize our differences. One person may see an action good while another see it as harmful such as in patients who are terminally ill and dying. Some people would prefer preserving the life by exerting much efforts as with the use of ventilators, multiple
With this in mind, we embrace the need of following certain ethical principles. Autonomy is one of those ethical principles. We understand that patients have all the rights to decide for themselves unless in times when they are incapable of doing it like for example, a mentally-ill client or those who suffered from brain trauma that greatly affect their state of mind. As advocates, as long as the client is within the legal age and are able to decide for themselves, we respect their autonomy. One of the ways in promoting autonomy is the informed consent where clients are informed of the procedures to be taken, the risks, the possible outcome and some alternatives where they can either accept or refuse freely. It is also part of their right to be informed and be educated in the care that they will receive as we cater their health needs. As for the minors and mentally-ill patients, it is almost the next of kin who sign the informed consent and in some cases parentalism is being followed where the health professional does the decision making. A problem to be avoided in the observance of patient autonomy is when we nurses assume that the patients has the same values and goals as ours that might lead to wrong conclusions. Secondly, nurses should also aware that every person has different thought processes. For …show more content…
A classic example to adhere with these principles is during giving immunization, although intramascular injection will produce pain, the benefit is far more rewarding since it will protect the children from acquiring certain diseases that might lead to severe illness or death. In some sense, even though initially, we cause pain, in the long run we prevent further more devastating harm to the immunized child by giving them protection from potentially deadly diseases. In the hospital setting, safety is a major part in our health care delivery system and as nurses who are with the patients 24/7, we play a major role. Assuring the safety of our patients from admission until they are discharges is our responsibility. This can be achieved by some simple actions like, proper transfer of patients, accurate assessment, securing the side rails, following the rights of medication and honest health education, and failure to do so will produce harm to them. A problem that might occur while observing these principles is when we fail to recognize our differences. One person may see an action good while another see it as harmful such as in patients who are terminally ill and dying. Some people would prefer preserving the life by exerting much efforts as with the use of ventilators, multiple