My moral distress dilemma took place Semester 3 in OB rotation. According to Elpern, E., Covert, B., & Kleinpell, R. (2015), “moral distress has been defined as painful feelings and/or psychological disequilibrium that occurs in situations in which the ethically right course of action is known but cannot be acted upon.” My moral dilemma began when I walked to the doctors’ lounge with my nurse to update the doctor about the cervix progression of my patient. The doctor bluntly said that the patient needed to hurry up because she needed to make a meeting on time. I was hoping the nurse was going to advocate for the patient and let her cervix progress on her own time but she didn’t. As a student I fought the urge to speak up because I have a student
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Not only is this an ethical principle, this is also a law that was passed by congress as the Patient Self Determination Act. It states that the patients are the stake holders of their health and therefore have self-determination over health decisions and interventions. It also states that the health care staff can not impose their own ideas and beliefs on to the patient because they are the ones to determine the course of their health decisions. In this case the doctor broke that ethical right of the patient by speeding up labor for the convenience of her personal agenda and not allowing her to determine her progression of labor without a medical reason to do so. My nurse broke that code by allowing this to happen and not advocating for the …show more content…
(2010)’s journal states that the way to help address and resolve moral distress is to use the four A’s: Ask, affirm, Assess, and Act. If I was to ask myself if that was moral distress I would have to say yes because that is exactly how I felt. If I was to affirm my feelings I could have felt the need to speak up in order to maintain my moral integrity to the ethical responsibilities of patient’s rights to beneficence, veracity, and autonomy .Even though my nurse did not advocate for the patient, I should have taken that role and I could have made a difference. Assessing the right action would have been to tell my clinical professor about the situation right there and then so she could back me up. I would then have told my nurse I think we should advocate for the patient and unless there’s a medical reason we should let her progress at her own time. We could have told the doctor that the patient should go their own pace and not have to hurry unless there’s a medical reason for it. I at that point would be able to act accordingly to my moral responsibilities. I could the doctor getting upset because we are questioning her decisions and if need be we would have to get the charge nurse involved or managers involved if it escalates. Therefore I think the NACC approach would have been effective because I would have developed a group of individuals to back me up on standing up for this ethical dilemma. It was a learning lesson on patient advocating.
Not only is this an ethical principle, this is also a law that was passed by congress as the Patient Self Determination Act. It states that the patients are the stake holders of their health and therefore have self-determination over health decisions and interventions. It also states that the health care staff can not impose their own ideas and beliefs on to the patient because they are the ones to determine the course of their health decisions. In this case the doctor broke that ethical right of the patient by speeding up labor for the convenience of her personal agenda and not allowing her to determine her progression of labor without a medical reason to do so. My nurse broke that code by allowing this to happen and not advocating for the …show more content…
(2010)’s journal states that the way to help address and resolve moral distress is to use the four A’s: Ask, affirm, Assess, and Act. If I was to ask myself if that was moral distress I would have to say yes because that is exactly how I felt. If I was to affirm my feelings I could have felt the need to speak up in order to maintain my moral integrity to the ethical responsibilities of patient’s rights to beneficence, veracity, and autonomy .Even though my nurse did not advocate for the patient, I should have taken that role and I could have made a difference. Assessing the right action would have been to tell my clinical professor about the situation right there and then so she could back me up. I would then have told my nurse I think we should advocate for the patient and unless there’s a medical reason we should let her progress at her own time. We could have told the doctor that the patient should go their own pace and not have to hurry unless there’s a medical reason for it. I at that point would be able to act accordingly to my moral responsibilities. I could the doctor getting upset because we are questioning her decisions and if need be we would have to get the charge nurse involved or managers involved if it escalates. Therefore I think the NACC approach would have been effective because I would have developed a group of individuals to back me up on standing up for this ethical dilemma. It was a learning lesson on patient advocating.