Nursing
2
Code of Ethics in Nursing
Ethical values are crucial for any health care worker. They are the universal rules of conduct that offer a practical foundation for recognizing the kinds of motives, intentions, and actions are valued. Ethics are the moral principles that rule how people behave themselves. The attention relates to right or wrong and covers the decision-making process of determining the actions' eventual consequences. Everyone has their morals and ethics. Within a health center, ethics are important as the working staff must make the right decisions and judgments based on their values while observing the laws that govern them and recognizing dilemmas. To work competently, nurses must have guidance and regulation in their profession (Haddad & Geiger, 2020). The American Nurses Association (ANA) established the codes of ethics for this reason. The code of ethics outlines the expectations, professional behavior, legal requirements, and obligations for all the nurses. The codes of ethics are established so that it is following the laws of the nation. It comprises seven principles grouped into areas of focus, each with practical guidance and an explanatory statement that demonstrates its application in the nursing practice. Therefore, the nurses are expected to use their professional judgment to give the best healthcare practice results.
The code of ethics is a crucial tool for all nurses as nursing is a dynamic and complicated profession involved with human lives. In this case, negligence, insufficient care, and omissions are not tolerated. The code of ethics reminds nurses of the critical focus positioned around the rights and the care of their patients. Patients often feel at risk when they seek medical attention and must share their vital and personal information about themselves. Therefore, there is a need for a code of ethics to shape nurses’ behaviors as they must take care of their patients on a professional level. Nurses should provide nursing care in the right way the first time they offer the service according to the code. The code is supposed to be ethically significant to offer guidance on managing ethical issues like the dilemma that is likely to arise at the clinical, administrative, or societal levels (Zahedi et al., 2013). An applicable code of ethics, according to the ICN, acts as a brief statement of the moral responsibilities and obligations of all people who go in for a nursing profession, a non-negotiable moral standard, and an aspect of nursing's comprehension of its assurance to the community to evade redundant misconduct. Both internationally and nationally, the nursing profession is expected to work according to the code of ethics.
Patients seeking medical attention have the right to decide about their healthcare and decide whether to accept or refuse the treatment offered. Nevertheless, patients should expect to obtain complete and accurate information on their caregivers' conditions and make a knowledgeable decision based on the data given to them by nurses. There are various ethical issues that a nurse can come across while taking care of their patients. In this case, only the code of ethics can protect the nurse in practice. Therefore, the code of ethics is vital in the nursing profession. Nurses should observe ethical issues.
Additionally, nurses should observe the ethical issues because there are chances that they might conflict with the ethical codes, beliefs, and values of nurses. Consideration for the first four principles, non-maleficence, justice, beneficence, and anatomy, should be made (Haddad & Geiger, 2020). Nurses should embrace the fact that all patients have a right to fair and equal treatment. On the other hand, nurses and other healthcare workers have a responsibility to promote good health, minimize maltreatment, and refrain from harm. Furthermore, nurses are expected to help their patients with duties that they cannot perform, like bathing bedridden patients, offering prescribed medications on time, and keeping bed rails up for restless patients—going against the code of ethics may lead to lawsuits, dismissal, suspension from work and also loss of certificates by nurses. The ethical codes for nurses act as a guide for the actions founded on social requirements and values. The code of ethics has a meaning as a living document only when applied to nurse realities and healthcare in the changing societies. All nurses are expected to understand, internalize the code of ethics, and it should be used in all aspects of the nursing profession to achieve its purpose.
In conclusion, nurses' national ethical codes are established as a guide for executing nursing duties and obligations. While there are reliable international ethical codes for nurses, the national ethical codes would be the added help offered for healthcare nurses in their intricate role of giving care to patients, research, education, and management of healthcare systems nationwide. Most nurses maybe are too exhausted or too busy to think about their behavior in healthcare. Nevertheless, responsibility through meeting responsibilities is essential and, therefore, the most trusted profession.
References
Haddad, L., & Geiger, R. (2020). Nursing Ethical Considerations. NCBI. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526054/
Zahedi, F., Sanjari, M., Aala, M., Peymani, M., Aramesh, K., Parsapour, A., Maddah, B., Cheraghi, M., Mirzabeigi, G., Larijani, B., & Dastgerdi, V. (2013). The Code of Ethics for Nurses. pmc. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3712593/