Health Care Ethics in Nursing Practice

INTRODUCTION
- First step towards excellence is caring (Tom Peters, Robert Walterman)
- As nurses: being concerned is not enough; concern must be translated into appropriate
language and actions
- We must deal with facts, concepts, basic principles and people making legal and ethical
decision-making a complex task
NURSING AS PROFESSION
- Competence in a specialized body knowledge and skill
- Provision of a particular service to society
- Standards of education and practice
- Self-regulation
PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE
- Based on the traditions of good practice and good manners
- Involves issues, maintenance of appropriate relationships at worksite, or the need to
stay within the role boundaries of our specialty

AREA JUDGEMENT SANCTION

ethical conduct
legal requirements
professional etiquette
right or wrong loss of professional
reputation and professional
affiliations
legal or illegal punishment as prescribed by
law
proper or improper loss of professional respect
and fellowship

RA 9173
- Scope of professional practice
- Requirements and qualifications for licensure and certification
- Exemptions to basic requirements
- Grounds for administrative practice/actions
- Penalties and sanctions for unauthorized practice
NURSING AS AN OCCUPATION
- Nursing combines both science and art in providing care to all clients across the lifespan
in any setting
- How do you find your job? Engaging? Exciting? Meaningful? Frustrating?
Overwhelming?

PRACTICE OF NURSING
- Legal Practice: Specialty Practice Acts
- Code of Ethics: assists in self-regulation
o Purpose: bind together a group of practitioners and expresses their aims and
aspirations
o Personal integrity, dedication, and principles behavior
o Fiduciary Relationship: requires one to act primarily in the best interest of those
they serve
CHALLENGES IN NURSING PRACTICE
- Beginning competency: understanding the theory (Knowledge)
- Requires practice: Mastery of clinical and social (Skills)
- Lifelong commitment: ethical, legal, and professional (Behavior)
HEALTH CARE ETHICS
- Deals with the rights and welfare of other people
- Professional courtesy and decorum
- Maintenance of appropriate standard of legal or ethical conduct
REALMS OF ETHICAL QUESTIONS
- Based on the individuals: values, morals, individuals, culture, intense personal beliefs
and faith
- Morality was what people believed to be right and good while Ethics is the critical
reflections about morality and the rational analysis of it (Joseph Fletcher)
OUR ANSWERS TO ETHICAL QUESTIONS
- The worth and credibility of an opinion
- An opinion is directly related to your command of facts, and the quality of reasoning and
rationales
- Tolerance as a virtue