Nurses Role In Nursing

In the United States and during the 21st century, advances in medical technology, death and end of life care has shifted from the home and the community to hospitals and medical professionals. A question posed to the client at admission to any hospital is if they desire an advanced directive on their care. Physicians are responsible for determining with the client what their code status should be. Normally a healthy person with minor procedures or illnesses are considered a Full Code, meaning the medical professional is to do everything possible to save the clients life during a time of crisis. Clients who are terminally ill, or many elderly patients are DNR, meaning Do Not Resuscitate which directs the healthcare professionals to let life end in the natural order and not to perform any measure that would sustain that patient’s life. Many times a patient enters the hospital setting with a Full Code and the patient’s status changes and the discussion of making the patient a DNR is necessary. It is the physician’s responsibility to deliver the news that the patient is terminal and the status needs to change, however, should nurses play a vital role when these decisions are made? This paper will discuss the nurses’ role in end of life decision making and how important it is for nurses to be involved, especially in the critical care setting. …show more content…
It has been indicated that nurses not being involved in the discussion is disheartening and they are forced to either wait for the physician to have the conversation or accept the decisions that have been made without the nurses input. Bach, Ploeg, Black, 2009., found that critical care nurses are as crucial to decision making and improving the quality of the EOL discussion. However, when nurses are able to participate in the discussion there are several factors that limit the nurse’s