Caring and the Ethics of Care in Nursing
In order to define caring in nursing, one must consider the various aspects of caring, and how nurses can use these aspects to build therapeutic relationships with their clients. After these aspects have been understood, nurses can use the ethics of care to influence decisions regarding clients. Challenges to caring do exist for nurses, and solutions to the challenges can be discovered through the ethics of care. There are strategies a nurse may use in order to guarantee quality care for both clients and their families.
Aspects of Caring
Fowler goes into detail about the four phases of caring, which are caring about, taking care of, care giving, and care receiving. (2015, p.xxv). These phases each have
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(Fowler, 2015). Some may consider care to be an obligation, others consider it to be a virtue, while still others believe that it is necessary to use step by step guidelines as a course of action to care for clients. (Fowler, 2015, p.xxvi). Fowler (2015) stated that developing a relationship begins with the ethics of care (p.28), and it’s already been determined that a therapeutic relationship is necessary to caring. (Doherty & Thompson, 2014). The aspects of care suggest that nurses must have a certain moral background, and a knowledge of one’s self and capabilities, in order to establish a caring relationship with clients. (Fowler, 2015). The four phases of the ethics of care allow the nurse to recognize that care is necessary, take responsibility and act by caring, strive to meet the needs of the client, and have the client or the client’s family acknowledge that care for the client was needed and received. (Fowler, 2015, p.28). The ethics of care guide the nurse’s decision making by relying on the nurse’s moral character and communication …show more content…
(Doherty & Thompson, 2014). As a nurse, I must understand that the family’s needs must also be met, with regard to the client’s overall care. I can include the client’s family in the recovery process, and treat the family with the same aspects of the ethics of care that I treat the client with. Newson (2012, p.542) lists strategies that I can use when dealing with behavioral difficulties of clients, including being patient and honest with myself and the client, and knowing the client and their needs and
The study of ethics, moral conduct and decision making regarding ethical issues in nursing is a vital component of nursing education. Nurses may be confronted almost on a daily basis with the need to make nursing decisions when there is no right or wrong answer. Nurses will at times feel caught in the middle (Pavlish et. al, 2011). This dilemma demonstrates how easily ones nursing practice can be significantly altered.
These viewpoints have importance for medicine as well as for nursing or other health professions. The complete practice of human caring theory is most fully realized in a nursing theory because nursing allows for the constant caring factor that medicine does not have;
Every nursing, in order to consider the profession must have an understanding of at least three of the five professional values, in my opinion. These values consist of altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity and social justice (Taylor 96). Beginning with the professional value of Altruism, the believe in or practice and self concern for the well-being of others (96). I believe that in order to be the best nurse you can be for your patients, you must understand the concept of altruism. As a nurse, your profession is to take care of people, if you do not know the professional value of altruism than you cannot possibly understand how important it is to care about the wellbeing of your patient.
This connects back to the learning outcome (4.1), “Demonstrates use of professional standards and the Code of Ethics to inform safe nursing care as applicable”. Using the code of ethics will help me provide competent, safe, compassionate care to clients. And my awareness and knowledge still need to develop to perform the ethical care I require to do in the long-term care
(2014, June 6). Retrieved from ANA American Nurses Association: http://nursingworld.org/DocumentVault/Ethics-1/Code/Code-Provision-1.pdf Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements Provision 2. (2014, June 6). Retrieved from ANA American Nurses Association: http://nursingworld.org/DocumentVault/Ethics-1/Code/Code-Provision-4.pdf Kangasniemi, M. P. (2014). Professional Ethics in Nursing:
It is the person and their physical, emotional, and psychological needs that are the basic focus of nursing’s attention. In order to care for a patient, the nurse must incorporate all these needs. For example, providing reassurance with an anxious patient who just finished hip surgery. Care also plays a major part when taking care of a unique patient. Caring influences my personal philosophy because it is the most important aspect of nursing.
Ethics serve as a guide for moral and ethical conduct and thus treat people with dignity, respect and uniqueness regardless of age, sex, color or religion. Also adhere to their job description and within the nation’s healthcare workforce. Surveys from several nursing specializations reported that there is no differences in
A nurse must keep up to date on education and new processes in health-care, so they can provide the best care. As a nurse, you have promised to give each of your patients the best care that can possibly be given. Nurses must follow a code of ethics, to act safely, provide ethical care no matter how they feel about the patient or the reason they are in your care. Following this code of ethics shows your commitment to caring for people and society, it is a guide of ethics and standards to follow to keep everyone safe. Nursing is also a wonderful opportunity to meet hundreds of people from almost every nationality and every walk of life.
Utilitarianism and Deontology are two major ethical theories that influence nursing practice. Utilitarian principles of promoting the greatest good for the greatest amount of people parallels the nursing tenet of beneficence. Deontological principles of treating individuals with dignity, and promoting the well-being of the individual parallels the nursing tenet of non-maleficence. Utilitarian and Deontological principles can be utilized to resolve ethical dilemmas that arise in the nursing profession. The purpose of this paper is to define utilitarianism and deontology, discuss the similarities and differences between the two, and to address an ethical dilemma utilizing utilitarian and deontological principles.
A therapeutic nurse-patient relationship is defined as a helping relationship that's based on mutual trust and respect, the nurturing of faith and hope, being sensitive to self and others, and assisting with the gratification of your patient's physical, emotional, and spiritual needs through your knowledge and skill (Pullen & Tabatha, 2010). This caring relationship develops when you and your patient come together in the moment, which results in harmony and healing. The five components of the nurse-client relationship are trust, respect, professional intimacy, empathy and power. To establish a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship, a nurse must master a few key components, including trust and respect. As a nurse, you should introduce yourself to your patients and refer to the patient by name.
According to Tronto (1993:102), care implies is reaching out to something and generally involves some type of action. In addition, it is not restricted to human interaction with others (can revolve around objects or environment), care varies across cultures, it is an ongoing process and can be regarded as both a practice and disposition (Tronto, 1993:104). Moreover, there are different interconnected phases of caring. Firstly, ‘caring about’ involves the recognition that care is necessary, secondly, ‘taking care of’ involves assuming some level of responsibility for the identified need and ultimately determining how to address it, thirdly, ‘care-giving’ involves meeting the direct needs for care (physical work) and lastly, ‘care-receiving’, recognizes that the particular object of care will respond to the specific level of care it receives (Tronto, 1993:104-107). Nonetheless, in reality, despite care being an integrated and ongoing process, there is likely to be conflict within each of the phases of care and between them (Tronto, 1993:104-109).
Now nurses have many roles, such as care takers, decision makers, advocates and teachers and they often assume several roles at the same time. Because of the diversity of nursing role nurses need a philosophy of nursing to guide their practice. The practice of nursing is the care of patients through a professional interpersonal relationship. Nurses apply behavioural scientific principles, biologic scientific principles, and principles of humanism in a
Nursing is a responsibility to provide the finest care regardless of the patient’s age, race, religion, sex, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or their past. Nurses must keep up to date on education, new processes, policies and keep informed about new laws and regulations in healthcare, so outstanding healthcare can be administered. As a nurse, you have undertaken a responsibility to provide people the finest quality care that can possibly receive. It is a nurses’ duty to follow the code of ethics, to act
Background and Significance of the Study Moral integrity is the key ingredients and navigator in professional nurses that lead to ultimate goal of nursing care. It has been recognized as a fundamental part of professional nurses’ practice (Ulrich et al, 2010; Pavlish et al, 2012). Professional nurses play the largest role to support the need for individualized treatment of the patient. The goals of the profession of nursing are related to ethical and involve protecting patients from harm while providing care that is the most benefit for the patient (Bosek, 2009; Kopala&Burkhart, 2005; Helft, 2011; Susan, 2013,). Nowadays, professional nurses have encountered to face and manage with moral problem that occur from complexity of patient health problems, advances in technology, inappropriate of health care system, policies and priorities that conflict with care needs, inadequate staffing and increased turnover, or lack of administrative support (Brazil et al. 2010; Eizenberg et al. 2009; Elpern et al. 2005;
This assignment is a reflection of ethical dilemmas in nursing practice as a registered nurse; this paper is based on the group assignment which was completed for NURS3004. This reflection will include an explanation of the role that I portrayed in the group, the preparation that I did for the role, what could have been done differently, how this group assignment has impacted me in terms of working in a team and finally explain how this assignment will assist me in my future clinical practice as a newly registered nurse. The role that I played in the group was a patient who has a mental health disorder and I didn’t want his mother to know about the illness, as a front it seemed as though we had a close relationship. When my mother leaves the room I asked the nurse to keep my illness confidential as she does not really understand it.