Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing NUR391/Professional Nursing Zachary Medler January 9, 2015 Dr. Susan Johnson Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing Two issues that Nurse’s face in Healthcare are Malpractice and End-of-Life considerations. Malpractice is professional negligence by the facility or staff whose actions have caused emotional, physical and financial damage to a client under care. In order for negligence to be considered, four elements must be fulfilled, and they are a duty, breach of duty, damages, and causation (Morales, 2012). End-of-Life considerations are prominent in the field of nursing as everyone eventually passes away. It becomes burdensome when the terminal client, has no advanced directive and the loved ones that are to make decisions are in disagreement with each other.
Background Stress in nursing is problematic as it affects the quality of patient’s care and, the impact of nurse’s burnout could be serious. A review from Griffiths and Mimura (2003) presented several researches on strategies, like, education, role playing, nursing method...; it claimed cognitive strategy was the effective one among the others on approaching stress in nursing. In fact, the data could not possibility reflect such result. The source of invalidation could be unveiled from Griffiths and Mimura (2003) cited Crockett and Lee (1994), the research of cognitive techniques study only conducted for two weeks of 12 hours in total. Despite the conclusion was rated as effective or, the result of the statistical test was scored as significant; within this brief timing, the effectiveness or accuracy is questionable.
What are the differences in competencies between ADN nurses and BSN nurses? Steven A. Davenport Grand Canyon University: NRS-430V 10/11/13 What are the differences in competencies between ADN nurses and BSN nurses? The ongoing battle in nursing today is whether or not to be an ADN or a BSN? Is there a difference in the competencies of the two nurses? Is one more qualified for patient care than the other?
Negligence and malpractice are increasing within nursing fields even though nurses and students who will become nurses are educated about their legal and professional responsibilities and limitations. Negligence is a failure of fulfilling the responsibilities that the nurse has which results in malpractice. A nurse can be sued for malpractice when she fails to take care of the patient; it results in patient’s injury, however we should keep in mind that not every case ends with the injury, but still it is a malpractice. Many nurses are not fully committed to perform the skills they should, and they enter the profession only because of benefits. Malpractice can be increasing because of a severe shortage of trained nurses, and it happened because of a few factors: nurses are required to work longer shifts; they can lead to fatigue and increase the risk for an error; also short Nursing courses providing degrees with no sufficient time to train nurses results in malpractice.
Advanced knowledge in individual patient care, understanding the essentials of person, environment, health and nursing profession and having the ability to apply the metaparadigms in daily practice, effectively improve nursing practice and patient outcomes. The goal for both degree level nurses is to provide quality care, however the BSN has a much broader knowledge base allowing for the care of more complex patients and a higher degree of autonomy in her role leading to better patient outcomes. A BSN’s leadership skills are far superior, opening the door to hold higher level positions within hospitals and community facilities. For ADN's seeking to be ‘the best nurse they can be,’ the BSN program will lead them on that
Laws on the other hand are binding rules of conduct. When laws are broken, it is punishable by an authority figure. An example of this would be a nurse making a medication error and not reporting it. The legal system and ethical system overlap in most situations, and every patient contact has the potential to produce a legal or ethical situation. “Knowledge of legal issues are essential because nurses are required to practice in accordance with legislation affecting nursing practice and health care failure to respect the legal rights of clients may result in legal or disciplinary actions.” (Makely, Austin, & Kester, 2013, p.64).
The importance goes further to the core of the problem focusing on the nurse and evaluating what is needed to be done in order to educate this patient group. The research problem involves nurses who are not comfortable discussing end-of-life issues with their patients and is identified in the first few paragraphs of the article. This is a significant problem nurses and doctors can educate, manage and monitor for these chronic patients. The purpose is not clearly stated in the study, but is inferred within the abstract of the article as well. Patients and families dealing with potential end-of-life issues is a very common problem in health care today.
This study presents policy analysis issue with an aim of demonstrating some of the challenges administrators face today in regards to decision-making. In doing so, the focus is placed on the “Physician Delegation of Prescriptive Authority,” which represents the authoritative decisions made by the government to direct the behaviors, decisions or actions of others on healthcare and its determining factor. Importantly, these decisions are arrived at after the proceeds of rules, laws and operative decision by the stakeholders involved. In this policy analysis, this work demonstrates that the stakeholders involved such as nurses and the doctors view the policy differently in Texas. For example, the nurses, more so nurses in charge think that going
They can work in cardiology, emergency, family practice, geriatrics, neonatology, nephrology, oncology, pediatrics, primary care, school health and women’s health(“Nurse Practitioners (NP)”,U.S. National Library of Medicine). To be a nurse practitioner you will need to have excellent people skills. A nurse practitioner needs to have a genuine interest in a person’s well-being(“Nurse Practitioner”, Career Cruising). Emotional maturity is a must have.
Critical Thinking in Nursing Practice Critical thinking plays a major part in our everyday decision making whether it is at work as a nurse or in our personal lives. In nursing, critical thinking is a vital skill needed to bring about excellent outcome, stand effective quality care, enhance patient’s safety and satisfaction. It helps nurses know when and how to intervene to situations in a timely and fruitful way “to become a professional nurse requires you learn to think like a nurse” (Critical Thinking and Nursing, 2013). As nurses, we make decisions daily while delivering care to our patients. To do this effectively, nurses should be able to acquire and utilize a higher and advanced level of thinking.