What Is An Important Ethical Issues Nurses Face On The Floor ?
| Maintaining ethics in the health care industry is a big challenge. Advances in medical health technology have increased the average life span of people. However, these advances have also created new ethical dilemmas and issues that were never seen before. |
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Health care professionals find it tough to integrate ethical values into the system. Providing quality medical care to patients is the prime moral obligation for nurses while respecting the dignity of the patients and not getting influenced by their medical condition.
With the changing times, the workforce in the healthcare industry is also changing. According to a study conducted on nursing practices, there are various kinds of ethical issues that are frequently experienced by registered nurses. Some of these include protecting the rights and dignity of patients, providing health care to patients at the risk of their own health, staffing patterns limiting accessible nursing care to patients, use of physical and chemical restraints, prolonging death by using improper medical measures, unethical and unhygienic working environment, unethical colleagues, informed consent, no consideration for patient’s life and caring for patients and their families who are misinformed. Apart from these, there are other bioethical issues related to health care including abortion, euthanasia, organ transplantation and in vitro fertilization.
The medical and nursing professionals should always work together. However, the situation has always been an unequal relationship with the doctor being the prime decision maker. While the doctor diagnoses and prescribes the treatment, nurses have to perform their duties depending on the instructions of the doctor. Nurses are always held accountable for their actions in both the criminal and civil courts even if they have followed the instructions given by a qualified medical specialist or doctor.
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