The Role of the Nurse from Legal, Ethical and Professional Perspective - Essay Example

? The Role of the Nurse from Legal, Ethical and Professional Perspective The Role of the Nurse from Legal, Ethical and Professional Perspective The role of the Nurse from a legal perspective A nurse can act in the capacity of a legal assistant through various ways when caring for patients.Whether pointing out potential medication mistakes, is or her treatment to higher authorities like doctors, nurses often advocate for patient’s views in the health care sector. When doing it, many nurse may not even be consciously aware of the role they are playing because they consider that it is simply a part of their job to ensure that their patient is well taken care of. Nurses are the medical practitioners that are conversant with the lives and experiences of patients and thus are in a position to make recommendations that can improve their patient’s general health. Advocating sometimes also calls for nurses to defends patient views that even they do not agree with. In such cases, nurses will put aside their personal opinions as health care is basicallt concerned with the patient needs, and not the feelings of the patient’s caregivers. The role of nurses as temporary legal advisers comes up because most patients tend to feel overwhelmed when confronted with the treatment options available for them. This is particularly true when the patient has been diagnosed with a terminal or life-threatening ailment. Many times, patients also turn to their nurses when seeking advise on how to handle matters that have to do with insurance. Nurses do not merely act as the advocates of the needs of their patients in a hospital setting, but also in government conventions discussing matters to do with the health sector (Yea-Pyng, Watson and Yun-Fang, 2012). Nurses can share their experiences with various patients with policy makers in such meetings and even give suggestions on how different aspects of the health sector can be improved. In most cases, nurses do not supervise or seek to monitor the way in which other medical practitioners, whether doctors or nurses, perform their responsibilities. However, nurses, because of their closeness in proximity to all patients, may be able to detect signs of maltreatment or the wrong treatment being given to a patient that is not under their care. In such cases, the nurse can exercise legal rights on behalf of the patient by reporting such an incidence to a higher authority. This is a special circumstance that calls for the urse to appeal to higher authorities because the patient’s health may be in jeopardy. Most nurses take this step after due consideration of the consequences because there might be contractual obligations that will result in disciplinary action being taken against the nurse if his or her complaint is misunderstood a defamatory action or breach of the patient and his or her caretaker’s privacy. The role of the Nurse from an Ethical perspective Nursing ethics are descriptive of the doctrines that govern how nurses act towards patients and their families. Nurses have a distinctive relationship with their patients. They tend to people at their most vulnerable point when the patients are unable to make decisions for themselves; and are thus entrusted by their charges with a greater amount of trust than is accorded to even religious leaders (Matiti and Trorey, 2008). Nursing ethics objectives include safe guarding the information volunteered by the patient and protecting his or her rights and giving practical guidance on treatment alternatives inspite of any difference in personal ideologies. Due to the rapid technological developments that have been witnessed in healthcare sector, nurses have had to re-examine the issue of ethics in the present settings. Even though nurses are expected to make ethical decisions in matters concerning their patients, they also have to take into account various factors that may affect them. For instance, a nurse may have to make the decision to give expensive treatment to pungent homeless people, drug abusers, or responsible citizens who have always been contributing members of the society who are now ill. If the responsible citizen is given the treatment, it is liely that he or she will recover and continue to be a contributing member of society. Moreover, the homeless as well as the regular drug abusers are still citizens that deserve professional care as well as dignity in spite of a nurse’s individual thoughts on their lifestyles. In addition, both inadequate resources and system abuse also have an effect on nurses’ perceptions on how to provide ethical care (Okougha, 2013). All the members of society have a right to benefit from nationalized healthcare services, but if they are not well sustained, it is likely that nurses will have to use their discretion when determining the patients to be treated and those that may be overlooked. The autonomy concept is also forms a major part of the nurse’s ethical framework. In the mediacl setting, autonomy can be described as a patient’s right to decide what treatments his or her body is exposed to. In medical settings, a patient’s right to autonomy is supreme and can only be disregarded if the patient’s choices are likely to bring harm to other people. In normal circumstances, patients have to give their informed consent to the alternatives presented to them by their nurses before any treatment is administered. If the relationship between the nurse and patient is to be successful, there must be trust (Breitholtz, Snellman and Fagerberg, 2013). Trust can only be extended to the nurse by the patient if the latter feels that his or her autonomy is being respected. Patients have to be supplied with all the available information in language that they can comprehend in order to allow them to make decisions on their preferred treatment. 'Informed consent', therefore, is a crucial ethical, legal, and professional duty and is descriptive of all the components of legitimate consent, whether it is obtained for ethical or legal purposes. There are matters that have to be discussed about the meaning of informed consent- particularly those that consider if the patient is in the right mental capacity to consent to a suggestion of treatment or if the patient was pressurized to consent (Griffith and Tengnah, 2010). Consent can be perceived by a nurse as being efficient for an ethical or legal purpose. Its effectiveness can be viewed as something rules out moral criticism or legal liability for the nurse or other medical practitioners that deal with the patient. It can also be viewed, on the other hand, as something that allows the patient to be able to make decisions concerning his or her treatment. In specific circumstances, nurses are obliged to administer treatment to their patients even without such consent (Kane, 2010). An example of such circumstances is when necessity makes it irrelevant for the nurse to gain the permission of the patient prior to administering treatment. Moreover, in such circumstances, the nurse may have to prove, once the patient is stabilized, that there was no time to ask for consent; or that delaying immediate treatment would have put the patient’s life in jeopardy. The nurse also has to prove that any rational person would take the same action in such circumstances, as it is basically an act that is in the best interest of the patient. This means that nurses who respond to emergencies are authorized to give immediate treatment, even when they cannot obtain consent, so long as administering immediate treatment will save the patient’s life or stop his or her situation from deteriorating further (Birgul and Dinc, 2013). Still, nurses are still expect to desist from giving further treatment if the patient refuses its continuation once he or she has been stabilized. Cases of patients who have made such decisions have often been publicized in the past. Sometimes they end up becoming court cases when the patient refuses continued care because of either religious reasons or terminal illness. There have been cases in the past where the parents of children who urgently needed blood transfusions refused this method of treatment because of religious reasons. In such cases, nurses have to exercise discretion in whichever choice they decide on. The Role of Nursing from a Professional Perspective Professional nurses have an obligation to preserve their patient’s confidentiality. Moreover, such stringent requirements in maintaining patient confidentiality has its own problems. For instance, if a patient’s condition deteriorates to the extent where the patient is unable to communicate, his or her treatment can be hampered or delayed by the refusal of health insurance providers to authorize treatment due to their inability to obtain information concerning the patient’s illness (Thomas, 2008). In most cases, nurses have to determine if a patient’s condition is serious enough to warrant their requesting the patient to divulge information about their illness to family members. Professional conduct is determined, to a large extent, by the nurse to patient ratios in medical centers (Dimond, 2011). Professionalism, where nurses are concerned, basically has to do with nurses discharging their duties to the best of their abilities. This cannot be accomplished if the nurses in question are worn down because they have so many patients assigned to them. Professionalism increases in circumstances where nurses have fewer patients assigned to them. Nurses who have fewer patients to take care of have lesser chances of making mistakes that result in re-admissions or complications in their patients’ symptoms. In addition, nurses with fewer patients to care for are less likely to forget to sterilize their hands when moving between patients, thus curbing incidences of nosocomial infections occurring anf further undermining patient’s health. The only way for professionalism among nurses to be increased is by ensuring that medical centers are well staffed so that patients benefit from the undivided attention of their caregivers. Working conditions for nurses should also be improved so that nurses are not expected to function for too long without taking breaks (Alaszewski, Holdsworth, Billings and Wagg, 2009). Due to inadequate resource allocations and cost containment, nurses usually have to deal with ethical challenges in the healthcare sector. Many times, professionalism is compromised when nurses operate in medical centers that are cost-constrained. In such hospitals, nurses are expected to supply quality patient care with meager resources. The Therapeutic Aspect of the Nurse-Patient Relationship The nurse patient relationship actually acts as a key therapeutic means that contributes towards a patient’s mental well being. A patient has the chance to ask questions, express feelings of worry, and be comforted by an educated and competent medical practitioner. Thus nurses also provide psychological care for patients. Even though nurses understand that they have to maintain boundaries with their patients, they can transmit encouragement and support through their words as well as non verbal supportive actions such as touching (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2004). In normal circumstances, the relationship between the nurse and will pass through some four stages: orientation, when the patient first enters the medical center, identification, when the patient learns more about the condition to be treated and the people who will be treating it, exploitation and, lastly, resolution. When nurses develop relationships with their patients, they are aware that they have to be able to provide the necessary emotional support to their patients (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2004). Thus, they have to ensure that even though they strive to identify with the feelings of their patients in order to empathise with them, they remain sufficiently distant in order to stay objective enough to be able to offer emotional support for their patients. Confidentiality serves to further strengthen this relationship that is already based on confidences. Moreover, even though nurses are compelled to share the details of patient’s illnesses with them, it may be important for nurses to present information in a way that assures the patient that healing is something that will take place. The formation of the therapeutic relationship between a nurse and patient also allows the patient to divulge more personal information to the nurse. The patient may express worry about different things in his or her life that are unrelated but whose expression leaves the patient feeling less anxious. This is something that will contribute towards the patient’s healing process. When patients first come to a medical center, trust will be built as a result of the consistency with which the nurse caters to the patient. People take time to confide in a nurse; particularly when they are first admitted to unfamiliar surroundings of a hospital (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2004). They are likely to base their trust in the nurse who attends to them exactly as he or she had stipulated would happen. Soon, with continued consistency, the patient will start to react to the concern and compassion that the nurse shows when attending to them. Patients will also react positively to nurses who appear to understand the emotional experiences they are undergoing in trying to adapt to their new surroundings. For instance, a nurse who takes time to reassure a nervous and worried patient that what he or she is experiencing is merely a reaction to the new environment is likely to gain the patient’s trust faster than a nurse that merely ignores such anxiety (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2004). Nurses can also express to their patients the fact that they too would be nervous in unfamiliar surroundings. Nurses can also gain the trust of their patients by showing respect for their individual traits. For instance, serving food with no animal products to a Hindu patient will endear the nurse to the patient. Respect is also another factor that greatly endears a nurse to a patient. Nursing, by its very nature, calls for a nurse to sometimes assist the patient in performing functions of the most intimate nature (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2004). If the patient feels even the slightest disrespect, he or she will not want to build any kind of relationship with the nurse. Nurses do not only respect their patients’ dignity by treating them with deference, but also by protecting their dignity in a situation where the patients are unable to do this for themselves. For instance, a concerned nurse will draw the curtains around a patient’s bed prior to examining him or her, or ask the attending physician to do so. A considerate nurse will also speak in a modified voice so that the patient’s information is not heard by every other patient or others’ visiting relations in a ward with adjacent beds. References Alaszewski, H., Holdsworth, L.,Billings, J., & Wagg, D. (2009). Privacy and dignity in continence care: research review. Nursing & Residential Care, 11(8), 393-396. Birgul, C., & Dinc, L. (2013). Ethical decision-making and professional behaviour among nurses: A correlational study. Nurs Ethics March, 20, 200-212. Breitholtz, A., Snellman, I., & Fagerberg, I. (2013). Carers’ ambivalence in conflict situations with older persons. Nurs Ethics, 20, 226-237. Dimond, B. (2011). Legal aspects of nursing. London: Pearson. Griffith, R., & Tengnah, C. (2010). Law and professional issues in nursing (transforming nursing practice series). Exeter: Learning Matters. Kane, K. (2010). eHealth and nursing Informatics. British Journal of Community Nursing, 15(4), 157. Matiti, M. R., & Trorey, G. M. ( 2008). 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