Hi Ms. Sanders,
Prior to my current role as a patient safety analyst, I worked as an oncology nurse in the outpatient radiation oncology department at the cancer center of the hospital. As an oncology nurse, my primary role is to be the patient advocate with regards to treatment information and symptom management. One ethical issue that always concerns me is informed consent. I see informed consent not just the patient signing his/her name on the dotted line. It is having answers to questions that the patient may have or ought to have. On many occasions I became aware that physicians only provided the basics of the procedure to the patients and barely discussed the alternative treatments and complications of the procedure. In the outside world, we seek reviews of products by customers. It is not so with healthcare; patients are not given the opportunity to hear from other patients about their experiences of the procedure and with the physicians. There were occasions when I was aware of the mistakes and errors of a particular doctor but I cannot give the critical information to the patient. It is a matter of adherence to the hospital policy or keeping my advocacy role for the patient. As cited by da Luz, Vargas, Schmidtt, Barlem, Tomaschewski-Barlem, and da Rosa (2015) …show more content…
1190).
Prior to my current role as a patient safety analyst, I worked as an oncology nurse in the outpatient radiation oncology department at the cancer center of the hospital. As an oncology nurse, my primary role is to be the patient advocate with regards to treatment information and symptom management. One ethical issue that always concerns me is informed consent. I see informed consent not just the patient signing his/her name on the dotted line. It is having answers to questions that the patient may have or ought to have. On many occasions I became aware that physicians only provided the basics of the procedure to the patients and barely discussed the alternative treatments and complications of the procedure. In the outside world, we seek reviews of products by customers. It is not so with healthcare; patients are not given the opportunity to hear from other patients about their experiences of the procedure and with the physicians. There were occasions when I was aware of the mistakes and errors of a particular doctor but I cannot give the critical information to the patient. It is a matter of adherence to the hospital policy or keeping my advocacy role for the patient. As cited by da Luz, Vargas, Schmidtt, Barlem, Tomaschewski-Barlem, and da Rosa (2015) …show more content…
1190).