Nursing Profession-5 Core Values, Responsibilities & Impact - Essay Sample

Introduction

Nursing as a profession has five core values which are; human dignity, integrity, autonomy, altruism, and social justice. Significant nursing as a profession includes; nurses have the responsibility of constant care of the sick, the injured, the disabled, and the dying. They also encourage the health of individuals, families, and communities in medical and communal settings (Salmond and Mercedes np). They also carry out health care research, management, and policy negotiations and encourage patients (Salmond and Mercedes np). Even though nursing solely focuses on diagnosing, treating, and preventing diseases, nurses face many ethical dilemmas however in this paper the end-of-life decisions posing ethical dilemma among nurses will be explored.

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Nursing existed before the mid-19th century. It traditionally began in Britain with Florence Nightingale, the well-educated daughter of wealthy British parents. She defied social conventions that stated that an individual could only nurse a sick family or an intimate friend. She began by nursing strangers in hospitals and their homes (Egenes 2). The famous nurses in the past and present include Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing; Clara Barton, founder of American Red Cross; Mary Breckinridge, founder of the New Model of Rural Health Care & Frontier Nursing Service; Jacqueline Fawcett, pioneered nursing conceptual models and theories and Jeanne Prentice who raised awareness for natural and home births. For an individual to become a nurse practitioner in the US, he or she can enter generalist practice through a two-year program in a community college or a four-year program in a college or university ("Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN) | American Nurses Association" np). For advanced nursing practice, an individual has to register for most master's programs. Special clinical skills required of a nursing practitioner include case management, telemetry, patient/family education, and critical care nursing ("Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN) | American Nurses Association" np). Special non-clinical nursing skills include effective communication, flexibility, desire to learn, and critical thinking ("Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN) | American Nurses Association" np). According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) statistics, the median nursing salary between May 2018 and May 2019 is $71,730 annually (Colleg np). Currently registered nurse job opportunities in the US include the Veterans Health Administration department, Conexus, International SOS, County of Los Angeles, and Guardian Angel Staffing Agency, Incorporation (USA Jobs Announcement para 3).

The End-of-Life Decision-Making Ethical Dilemma

An ethical dilemma is a scenario where a nurse has two or more alternatives, but none gives the best remedy. The nursing profession poses a lot of moral dilemmas ranging from patient diagnosis to disease prevention. End-of-life care is one of the common ethical dilemmas that nurses face when looking after a dying patient. End-of-life care stipulates that the nurses should address the sick patients' needs and, in other scenarios, their relatives' (Brown and Vaughan 580). Death is painful. Death, rather end-of-life, is a situation where the physical functions of a living organism stop (Komaromy et al. 449). End-of-life decision-making poses a lot of dilemmas to a nurse. These ethical dilemmas arise when a dying patient cannot adequately express his/her needs. A nurse practitioner has to make these decisions on their behalf or adhere to the decisions made by the respective doctors (Cheon et al. 11). Thus, the dilemmas do not involve death rather the patient’s daily life, care and treatment, continuing or discontinuing treatment.

End-of-life decision-making involves doctors, patients, family members (if present), and nurse practitioners. All these four parties play a critical role in making decisions concerning the life of a dying patient based on moral weight. Nurse practitioners have the mandate of providing the patients with medicines that the doctors have prescribed, whether they are of a similar opinion or not, leading to conflicts between them and the doctors (Cheon et al. 9). Nurses are left helpless since they cannot offer the patients medications according to their prescription in the absence of doctors leaving the dying patients in pain as they await doctors to do the prescription. Nurses also have an ethical dilemma when giving the patients the treatment since the patients did not make any decision on their treatment but their relatives and doctors. Another ethical decision-making dilemma involves the nurse practitioners and the relatives of dying patients on the patient's end-of-life care. Relatives often want their beloved to receive care and treatment at home as they await their death, whereas the nurse prefers to care for them at the hospital (Izumi et al. 613). Lewis (288) urges that nurses, as health professionals, have the responsibility of ending an individual's life to ease his or her pain when they realize there are no chances of surviving.

The decision-making dilemma affects dying patients, their relatives, nurse practitioners, and doctors. The treatment decision made by a doctor can affect them based on their response with a dying patient. If a patient dies due to a given treatment's side effects, it will stress the doctor since it is his/her fault. A nursing practitioner becomes stressed and experiences frustration since they cannot make decisions about the dying patient. All they do is execute decisions made by doctors and dying patient’s relatives. The study suggests educating relatives of dying patients on the end-of-life decision-making process as the best solution. It is painful to lose a loved one, and the education will help the family members make decisions that do not violate the patient's autonomy. The training will also ensure sufficient communication before deciding on the patient's treatment and care.

Christian View of the Dilemma

The courts have recognized the legal rights to make medical treatment decisions at the end of one's life. According to the Christian worldview on the end of life care decision urge that ordinary legal rights do not capture the full reality, meaning, and importance of death. Christians view end-of-life care decision making (euthanasia) as murder guided by the Bible (Stempsey 250). Life is a gift from God, and no human being has a right to take the life of another regardless of their distinctive physical, social, or mental aspects except God (Dahlberg et al.).

Conclusion

To sum it up, the nursing profession has made rapid progress in improving the health and well-being standards of people globally. Nurse practitioners have to make critical decisions when taking care of dying patients according to their needs, their relatives' and doctors'. In the future, nurse practitioners should be more involved in decision-making about dying patients by equipping them with adequate knowledge vital in solving ethical dilemmas. Nurse practitioners should also help relatives and patients when making decisions to ensure they do not violate the patients’ autonomy.

Works Cited

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Colleg, The. "Nurse Salaries: Which US States Pay Rns The Best (2019 Updated)". Nightingale College, 2020, https://nightingale.edu/blog/nurse-salary-by-state/.

Egenes, Karen J. "History of nursing." Issues and trends in nursing: Essential knowledge for today and tomorrow (2017): 1-26. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=b9zPDQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=history+of+nursing&ots=LxESMtr3ld&sig=LuxpyqKCkQoSl0c524Xd3wEsYcU

Izumi, Shigeko (Seiko) et al. "Defining End-Of-Life Care from Perspectives of Nursing Ethics." Nursing Ethics, vol 19, no. 5, 2012, pp. 608-618. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/0969733011436205.

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Lewis, Clive Staples. "The poison of subjectivism." Religion in life 47.3 (1978): 288-296. Retrieved from https://ixtheo.de/Record/164188925X

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Sayers, Dorothy Leigh. "Why Work?" Trinity Forum Reading, 2011. Retrieved from https://www.themathesontrust.org/papers/christianity/Why%20Work.pdf

Stempsey, William E. "End-of-life decisions: Christian perspectives." Christian bioethics 3.3 (1997): 249-261. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/cb/article-abstract/3/3/249/276308

USA Jobs Announcement. Registered Nurse Vacancies. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=nursing+opportunities+in+the+US&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&ibp=htl;jobs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjzgLu56dPpAhUeSBUIHS04B94QiYsCKAF6BAgJEBE#htivrt=jobs&htidocid=ABaBTWEaJM86Iv0_AAAAAA%3D%3D&fpstate=tldetail