Essay Sample on Information Dilemmas in Nursing

Introduction

The ethical dilemma that I have been involved in is the one where I had to choose between honesty versus withholding information. I did not know whether to share information with the patient, knowing that it is against the family’s wish or withhold it. The patient's family members may want to hoard or withhold the sick patient's information to protect their emotions. Besides, the patients possess all rights to understand or know about their health status and condition (Fowler, 2020). So, deciding on how to leak and share the information, conditionally if contrary, goes against the family's belief, it can be a difficult scenario.

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Analyze the Consequences

Before making any decision side, I first analyze the consequences of sharing information by the sick patient that could be seen as touchy by the patient's member family. Besides, I looked at the negative and positive consequences that connect the two conditions without neglecting the sick person's rights. However, through a thorough personal analysis, I counted for bad and good consequences. According to Stievano & Tschudin (2019), one can sound positive in handling honesty versus withholding information condition by analyzing the condition.

Analyzes the Two Actions

I looked at the options from a different perspective. For instance, I use the Nurses code of conduct, which states that certain actions are inherently keeping promises and truth-telling while others are bad. I used the nursing code of ethics as non-maleficence, justice, beneficence, and autonomy in rating the sick patient's life information by sharing the information about his/her condition. According to Haahr et al. (2020), consider looking at the weighty options that measure up in contrast with the ethical or moral principles of respecting the dignity of the sick, fairness, and honesty of the family members and the patient who requires medical attention.

Making a Decision

In making the final option, I combined the approaches discussed above, namely detailed consequences and analysis of the two actions. This enabled me to check on the limitation of each option. By analyzing options and consequences, I made the relatively appropriate decision to choose between the two options. Therefore, I concluded that we as nurses we understand the moral nursing ethical conduct and states that when a patient brought himself/herself to the hospital, he has all the rights to share the information about the illness condition. As a nurse, I give the best treatment to the person. Meaning that I follow the nursing code of ethics that fosters saving the patient's lives even if it goes contrary to the family members' beliefs. Notably, science and belief do not work together (Haahr et al.,2020). Furthermore, when faced with the same situation again, I will impart reviewing the American Nurses Association (ANA) nursing code of ethics that presents various ways of making a good and sound decision. I would require more teachings from the ANA centers of ethics and human rights; I will resolve the same dilemma by creating an environment where nurses can share their opinions on how dilemmas can be resolved. Lastly, by combining the sciences disciplines such as physicians and nursing as a discipline.

Conclusion

I learned from this dilemma that some families could bring the sick patient to the hospital for treatment. In a real sense, they are not free with the sick person sharing the status condition because it might go against the family beliefs. Before deciding, one should consider the safer side, which means the positive and negative consequences should be deeply looking at.

References

Fowler, M. D. (2020). Toward reclaiming our ethical heritage: Nursing ethics before bioethics. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 25(2). DOI:10.3912/OJIN.Vol25No02Man04

Haahr, A., Norlyk, A., Martinsen, B., & Dreyer, P. (2020). Nurse's experiences of ethical dilemmas: a review. Nursing Ethics, 27(1), 258-272.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733019832941

Stievano, A., & Tschudin, V. (2019). The ICN code of ethics for nurses: a time for revision. International nursing review, 66(2), 154-156.
https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12525.