Chapter 6 Flashcards
The right to self determination
Autonomy
The duty to do good
Beneficence
A person’s words or actions that indicate he/she lacks good intentions towards another
Betrayal
A subdiscipline of applied ethics that studies questions surrounding biology, medicine, and the health professions
Bioethics
Brief excursions from an established boundary for a therapeutic purpose
Boundary crossing
A deviation from the established boundary in the healthcare provider and client relationship where the healthcare provider’s needs and the client’s needs are confused
Boundary violation
Guidelines for behavior specific to a moral framework for professional practice
Code of ethics
The sum total of individual and collective experience, knowledge, and good sense
Collective ethical wisdom
A problem that confronts one, with a choice of solutions that seem or are equally unfavorable
Ethical dilemma
The subtle, even unnoticed, slippage of ethical standards
Ethical erosion
A process that obscures the ethical dimensions of a decision
Ethical fading
The philosophical study of right action and wrong action, also known as morality
Ethics
A recently developed moral theory based on insights of Gilligan that rejects the traditional male-centered ethics that focused on rationality, individuality, and abstract principles in favor of emotion, caring relationships, and concrete situations
Ethics of care
Duty to keep one’s promise
Fidelity
Supports and promotes patients’ healthcare rights and enhances community health and policy initiatives that focus on the availability, safety, and quality of care
Health advocacy
the elimination of arbitrary distinctions and the establishment of a structure of practice with a proper share, balance, or equilibrium among competing claims
Justice
Care at the end of life for which there is little hope of benefit
Medical futility
The process in which an individual tries to determine the difference between what is right and what is wrong in a personal situation by using logic
Moral reasoning
Designates the conventional beliefs of a particular society
Morality
Duty to do no harm
Nonmaleficence
The means of producing stronger, sustainable performance through ethical pathways consistent with the vision, mission, and values of the organization
Organizational integrity
A state of wholeness and peace experienced when our goals, actions, and decisions are consistent with out most cherished values
Personal Integrity
An American school of philosophy that rejects the esoteric metaphysics of traditional European academic philosophy in favor of more concrete questions and answers
Pragmatism
Guideline derived from philosophical perspectives
Principle
The limits of the professional relationship that allow for a safe therapeutic connection between the healthcare provider and the client
Professional boundary
When a person knows what is right doesn’t want to do it
Rationalization
Those choices that conform to ethical norms or principles
Right choices
The degree to which one can be relied upon without surveillance by the observer
Trust
The principle of utility or the greatest happiness principle
Utilitarianism
Truth telling, or the duty to tell the truth
Veracity
Action taking by a person who goes outside the organization for the public’s best interest when the organization is unresponsive after the danger is reported through proper organizational channels
Whistle-blowing
Sources of ethical dilemmas:
Values, communication, diversity, legislation, nurses, patients, organizational differences
Nurse-nurse ethical dilemmas
- nurses espousing different standards of practice
- guidelines to reporting unprofessional and unsafe behaviors
- substance use disorders
Nurse-patient dilemmas
- decision making authority
- pain management
- dying process futile care
- patient privacy
- communication among providers
- patient restraint
- technology issues (alarms)
Nurse-organization dilemmas
- lack of congruency among nurse values, individual patient needs, and the demands of the organization
- management of errors
- staffing adequacy
- documentation technology
Strategies to address ethical issues:
- Self-knowledge specific to ethical concepts, issues, and resolutions
- Demonstrating moral courage
- Clarity of one’s professional role
- Trust building: being able to communicate openly and honestly with colleagues, patients, and families
- Managing practice breakdown errors: disruption or absence of any of the aspects of good practice
