Professional Nursing Boundaries - Essay Example

Professional nursing boundaries Professional nursing boundaries Examples of professional boundary violations that an individual may encounter as a nurse include when a nurse going out of her professional restrictions to accommodate a single patient. The second example, is a when a nurse discloses personal or classified information to a patient as a way of reassurance for the patient. The final example is a nurse accepting a gift from a patient for his or her extra services. In a healthcare setting, boundaries are necessary to protect both the physician and the patient.

One boundary is the patient-physician relationship, where a health care worker must maintain a professional relationship with his or her patient. Other boundaries include respecting the integrity of personal information, separating the professional demands from emotions, inability to call patient nicknames such as honey or sweetie (Barton, n.d). In addition, professionals can not touch the patients in appropriately and the demeanor of the physician should always be professional. In addition, tips, gifts or favors are also boundaries that exist in all health care settings (Barton, n.d).In the situation where I would witness a colleague violating professional boundaries, I would first confront him or her and explain the situation.

Depending on the nature of the situation, I would observe and see if he or she makes any changes. If the colleague continues to violate the boundaries, I would have no choice but to report the issue to my superiors. However, if the violation involves more serious scenarios that jeopardize the health of the patient, I would report the situation immediately. References Barton, J. (n.d) Professional Boundaries: Discerning the line in the Sand. CAPNM