Chapter 44 - Ethics & Values (Week 4 quiz) Flashcards
_____ are private, personal, or group standards of right and wrong. _____ behavior reflects personal beliefs or religious beliefs
moral; moral
Examples:
Opinion on abortion
GOlden rule “treat others how you want to be treated”
______ are a systematic study of right and wrong conduct. Formal process for making consistent moral decisions. It uses specific rules, theories, principles and perspective to inquire into the justification of an individual’s action in a particular situation.
ethics
While morals state this is right/that is wrong, ethics answers the question “What should I do in a given situation?”
Ethics ar rooted in the legal system and reflects political values of society.
_______ refers to the application of ethical principles to healthcare. It is concerned with every are of healthcare including direct care of patients, allocation of resources, utilization of staff and medical and nursing research.
bioethics
______ ______ is a subset of bioethics. As a nurse you are responsible for deciding the nature and extent of your level of participation in a given ethically challenging situation, you must support clients’ decisions based on their ethical beliefs, and coping with your feelings about the results of decisions made by others.
nursing ethics
Example: Parents bring in 15 year old son who i bleeding internally and needs a blood transfusion. The parents are jehovah’s witness and they believe that blood transfusion are morally wrong. NURSING ETHICS QUESTION is “What do I do in this situation? DO I try to convince them otherwise?”
The nurse knows that a physician with Type1 diabetes became hypoglycemic while performing a bedside thoracentesis. The physician resisted assistance and finished the procedure despite being impaired. The nurse is upset by this physician’s behavior. This is an example of nursing ethics.
a. true
b. false
Correct answer: A and B, true and false
This example most directly involves the ethical behavior of the physician, so you might think it is not nursing ethics. However, it could be argued that the nurse has a duty to report impaired practice, perhaps as a whistleblower.
Nurses should study ethics because….
- You will encounter ethical probs frequently at work
- Ethics is central to nursing
- Multidisciplinary input is important
- Ethical knowledge is necessary for prof. competence (we want to conduct our work well and have it stand the test of public scrutiny, we need to be clear about the ethics of our work)
- Ethical reasoning is necessary for nursing credibility among other disciplines (1-understand your own values as they relate to basic morality and 2-use ethical reasoning to articulate your moral position).
- Ethical proficiency is essential for providing holistic care (provide support for the spiritual and moral concerns)
- nurses have a resp. to be advocates for patients
- Studying ethics will help you to make better decisions (prepares you to analyze moral problems from multiple perspectives rather than relying entirely on your personal values, intuition and emotions.)
(p.1085)
________ is the communication and defense of the rights and interested of another.
advocacy
Advocacy includes protecting pt’s legal or moral rights. To advocate for pats in ethical situations you must be able to identify the ethical issues and communicate the pt’s wishes
Do you need a medical order or hospital permission to act ethically?
No. Regardless of what others are doing, you should always make the ethical choice. Treat all pts with dignity.
What are some sources of ethical problems for nurses?
1.Increased consumer awareness; informed consent
(prof are expected to share knowledge with pt and obtain a truly informed consent, unlike the olden days when people just trusted the doc and did what they were told)
- Technological advances: we CAN, but should we? (cloning, using stem cells, perform abortions, etc.)
- Multicultural population: differing ethics (you need to respect variety of belief systems, and you will need to serve as a pt advocate even when the pt’s value system differs from your own)
- Cost containment: unequal access - (pts are sent home from the hospital while they are still very ill; insurance pmts limits service; pt to nurse ratio has increased
- Final decision by family and physician
- Nursing role is to support patient & family
- Turning off the ventilator/removing from tube feedings
- Nature of nursing work: moral problems, unique position in organization.
- Nature of nursing profession - caring vs time spent with pt (less time available with overloaded work); autonomy vs hard choices (we want equal status but prefer to defer dr decide hard choices);
______ ______ (or moral agency) for nurses is the ability to base their practice and professional standards of ethical conduct and to participate in ethical decision-making. Simple stated, it means the nurses has choices and are resp for their actions.
ethical agent
ethical agents must:
Know the difference between right and wrong
Understand abstract moral principles
Apply moral principles in decision-making
Weigh alternatives; plan to achieve goals
Decide and choose freely
Act according to choice
____ _____ is the Inability to carry out a moral decision. The nurse perceives constraints such as: Physicians; nurse administrators; other nurses, the law; threat of lawsuit.
Moral Distress
If you are confident that you have made a good decision and can express it logically and clearly to others, you can at least enter into a conversation with the nurse admin, physicians, and families about what ought to be done. Then at least you can be comfy knowing you did all you can do.
____ _____ is belief that others are acting immorally. The nurse does not participate in the act. The nurse feels powerlessness because he/she cannot prevent a “wrong.” Sometimes the only way to respond is by “whistleblowing.”
Moral outrage
What is a whistleblower?
a person who identifies a person or organization that is incompetent/unethical or engaged in an illicit/illegal activity to an agency that can stop the wrongdoing.
PPT:
Identification of an unethical or illegal situation
Can involve one person or an entire organization
Reporting such an action to someone in authority
Need accurate information (never jump to conclusions! always look at the big picture before taking action)
Be aware of the consequences (weigh risks and benefits)
ANA working to protect whistleblowers
_____ ______ ______ occurs when the nurse’s ability to perform the essential functions of nursing is diminished by chemial dependence on drugs, alcohol or mental illness.
impaired nursing practice
If a nurse is impaired, they cannot practice nursing
T or F: Not acting is a decision you make.
True. If you do nothing when a person has coded, you chose not to act and it is your decision.
See pg1088 paragraph NURSES MORAL PROBLEMS
How are values, morals and ethics related?
Ethics are based on a structured set of principles and theories and ethical decision are publicly state i terms of possible alternative behaviors. These decision are influenced unconsciously by our own personal values and morals.
In essence, even though you are respecting someone else and taking their beliefs into consideration, it is impossible not to put your own spin on the situation.
What are Factors in Moral Decision-Making?
- Values (Belief about the worth of something):
- Highly prized ideals, customs, conduct, goals
- A full value is freely chosen from a lit of alternatives after thoughtful consideration, cherished and made known to others,
- Learned through observation and experience
- Vary from person to person - Attitudes (mental dispositions or feelings toward a person, object or idea). They can be cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling), and behavioral (doing).
- Beliefs (Something that one accepts as true, not always based on fact)
Who should your first loyalty be to?
the patient
This is what creates issues… because you may have to go against dr, other nurses, etc.
What is the difference between personal and professional values?
These values have the following differences:
● Personal values are those that are part of your own value system that you have chosen. These may include money, friendship, scholarship, or fairness.
● Professional values are those you acquire through socialization into nursing—from teachers, peers, learning, and experiences.
What is an example of professional values?
Answer:
Professional values are acquired during your socialization into nursing, and they provide the foundation for your practice.
Examples of these may include those outlined in Table 44-2 (in Volume 1): altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, social justice, equality, esthetics, freedom, truth, service, education, competence, and loyalty, as well as others.
Where do we acquire values?
Through social interaction
______ _______ means that we attempt to be neutral in a situation by attempting to understand our own values regarding an issue and to know when to put them aside. Becoming nonjudgmental when providing care.
value neutrality