Nursing

In a master's program in nursing as well as in clinical practice, unethical behavior can have significant consequences for patients and the overall healthcare system. To stop them from happening and to encourage moral behavior in the nursing profession, it is critical to comprehend and investigate their repercussions. Exam cheating and assignment copying are just two examples of the unethical activity that can occur in a master’s program in nursing. Falsifying clinical hours is an example of unethical action in a master's program for nurses. A required number of clinical hours should be completed by nursing students as part of their education. Lying about the number of hours worked is an unethical practice known as "falsifying clinical hours," which can have major repercussions (Pittman & Barker, 2020). If nursing students fabricate their clinical hours, they might not have the necessary knowledge and abilities to treat patients safely and competently. Lawsuits, patient injury, and the nursing student's loss of license are all possible outcomes of this. Furthermore, misrepresenting about clinical hours damages patients' trust in healthcare practitioners and compromises the integrity of the nursing profession (Pittman & Barker, 2020).

In nursing practice, unethical behavior can also have serious consequences. One example of unethical activity in nursing practice that can have negative effects is discrimination. Giving patients unfair or biased treatment because of their color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or other characteristics is known as discrimination (Narayan, 2019). Discrimination violates nursing's ethical principles and may result in injury, a decline in trust, and legal repercussions for the nurse. Discrimination can take many different forms, such as refusing to collaborate with coworkers based on a patient's identity, making disparaging remarks or jokes about them, or denying patients specific treatments or procedures. Discrimination violates nurses' moral obligations to treat patients with safety and compassion and is unethical (Blanchet Garneau et al., 2018). Discrimination may result in litigation, injury to patients, and loss of nursing licensing. Discrimination can also harm the credibility of the nursing profession and produce a toxic work environment.

Unethical behavior can have serious repercussions for nursing practice and master’s programs in nursing. These effects can affect the individual as well as the healthcare industry. The foundations of morality and the consequences of unethical activity must be understood by nurses and nursing students. Nursing education and continuing professional development should include ethics training and teaching. Policies and processes to deal with unethical behavior and encourage integrity in the workplace should be in place in healthcare companies as well (Choe et al., 2020). The nursing profession may uphold its integrity and offer patients competent and safe treatment by encouraging ethical behavior.

 

References:

Pittman, O. A., & Barker, E. (2020). Academic dishonesty: What impact does it have and what can faculty do? Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 32(9), 598-601. DOI: 10.1097/JXX.0000000000000477

Choe, K., Kim, S., Lee, C., & Kim, S. (2020). Effect of ethics seminar on moral sensitivity and ethical behavior of clinical nurses. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(1), 241

Blanchet Garneau, A., Browne, A. J., & Varcoe, C. (2018). Drawing on antiracist approaches toward a critical antidiscriminatory pedagogy for nursing. Nursing Inquiry, 25(1), e12211. 

Narayan, M. C. (2019). CE: Addressing implicit bias in nursing: A review. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 119(7), 36-43. DOI: 10.1097/01.NAJ.0000569340.27659.5a