Legal and Professional Ethical Issues in Nursing- myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theLegal and Professional Ethical Issues in Nursing. Answer: Introduction Ethics refers to the moral principles, morals and values that are set to guide and govern a certain specific group of people (Sadeghi and Khamarnia, 2011). A law is a system or rules and regulations that are created by society or group leaders (e.g. government) and are officially enforced to the people to govern and regulate their behavior and actions. In Australia, Registered Nurses are thenurses that have basically passed through a nursing school, obtained training and graduated after passing the national licensing examination from that specific country (Lartey, 2014). These nurses are trained to provide professional health care and medication services to patients in hospitals and especially those that have already been discharged from hospital but still care and regular observations. Additionally, they are responsible for educating patients as well as their relatives on various health processes and procedures. Besides educating the patients and their relatives, nurses in Australia alsotrain the community or society members about different diseases, health care and medical processes and services that can be easily practiced (White and Scott, 2015). With that in mind, it is important for every registered nurse to be completely aware and conscious of their roles and responsibilities in a health institution (Durham, 2015). This is simply because the nurses are in charge of the patients and therefore should be held accountable of their practices and actions leading to any kind of result. In this case study, the nurses are in charge of a childs life but did take that responsibility as serious as they should. My assignment is going to discuss the ethical practices the nurses in the case study should have abided by, relating them to the actions made by the nurses. Case Analysis Roles and Responses for Nurses Registered nurses often work in hospitals and other outpatient health institutions whereby they provide services and support to the doctors and care for the patients. These nurses are responsible for administering patient medications (Huynh et al, 2016), cleaning the patients and changing their beddings, observing and monitoring patients condition especially when the doctor is not around, maintaining patient records and communicating with the doctors among other things. In addition to that, the registered nurses are supposed to provide emotional support to the patients relatives as well as to the patients. However, not all nurses carry out all these duties. Nurses with higher education levels are given other duties like helping surgeons during operations, basically these duties vary depending on the level and type of patient care required. Legal and professional issues Raised Lack of effective communication Just as mentioned earlier, nurses are responsible for sharing information about a patients condition with the doctors responsible. Technically, nurses are the ones that spend more time with the patients than the doctors and therefore have the opportunity to see changes in the health conditions of the patient than doctors. Additionally, nurses are supposed to make regular patient checkups and observations to ensure that they are getting better or rather not getting worse (Pirinen et al, 2015). Work Issue In the case study, there was a complaint on lack of effective communication. The nurses were accused of not providing effective communication channel between them and the pediatrician, i.e. perhaps they failed to call, email, or provide physical information on what the observations and diagnosis of the child was. The nurses failed to share important information with the pediatrician which meant that the doctor did not have enough information to treat the child. In this case, the nurses failed to adhere to the code and ethic on effective and efficient communication between the nurses and the doctors. When the nurses do not share information about the health condition of the patient with the doctor, then it will a longer time for the doctor to point out and realize the real problem with the patient (Ridling et al, 2016). In the health sector, communication is a key aspect because it involves sharing information with the common goal of saving human life. However, due to lack of effectiv e communication, the child in this case study ended up dead simply because the doctor could not point out the problem earlier and did not receive any information from the two nurses. This was, the nurses broke the code ethics and failed to provide satisfactory professional practice. Observation recording and documentation It is always sensible for a patients health records to be kept safe in case of future reference. In most health institutions, nurses are the ones that make patient observations, e.g. body temperature measurements and other changes in a patients health condition which is basically a patients behavior or progress. When these nurses make these observations, it is ethical for them to record them in writing to be able to document them effectively. These records are very crucial because they act as evidence to be used by the doctor to prescribe medication to the patient (Pavlish et al, 2011). In addition to that, these records can also act as evidence in a court of law in case the nurse is cued and complaints filed. These records can also be used by a different doctor whenever the patient needs transfer. It is therefore important for a nurse to ensure that they have a record and have documented the observations made when the doctor was absent or unavailable (Sharmil et al, 2015). Work Issue As per the case study information, the two nurses failed to record the observations they made about the childs health condition. By them not providing a recorded documentation of the observations they made, may be interpreted as a work issue, which is basically: they actually did not conduct any observations, none at all or they made the observations but failed to record them in writing. However, the point that was made from the complaint that was filed was that the nurses failed to produce any observation records which means that they failed to perform one of their most important responsibility hence breaking their code of ethics and professional laws. Provision of Quality Practice A registered nursesduty is to provide professional care and support to patients. According to Dunn Lopez et al, 2017, providing care and support involves performing different activities like giving medications, educating them on better ways to take care of themselves by making small professional talks with them, taking their health condition measurements and making frequent checkups on their progress among other things. According to Nursing and Midwife Board of Australia, registered nurses are trained to perform these activities professionally and it is their duty to do so. By doing this, they basically make use of their knowledge, skill and expertise. It is important to note that, there is a direct correlation between the quality of a nurses practice and the health condition turn-up of a patient. Good or high quality patient care and patient outcomes results from high quality health care and support received from the nurse in charge (Choi, 2015).Therefore, the nurses should be compl etely focused and determined to provide the best practice to the patients according to their professional standards. Work Issue From the case study, the nurses failed to provide quality service to the infant by failing to record their observations about its health changes and also failing to communicate effectively with the pediatrician as well. Because of lack of observation records and effective communication, the doctor failed to get an understanding of where the child was suffering from early enough to give treatment. The nurses kept the information to themselves which is certainly not a professional behavior. Creative and Critical Thinking Ability Nurses are professionally trained people. This means that they have effective and efficient skills, expertise and knowledge to take care of patients in a health care facility (Pasila et al, 2017). Registered nurses are trained on how to take care of different kinds of patients suffering from different diseases and from different age groups. With that in mind, nurses (especially Australian nurses) are supposed to be effective and good critical thinkers which is a skill or attribute that in most cases is said to be a persons original ability. This is one of the most important skills that a registered nurse should have. With critical thinking, nurses are able to make rational decisions when it comes to developing plans on patient treatment and observation plans or schedules (Ballard et al, 2016). Critical thinking will enable a nurse to effectively identify a problems, determine a suitable solution for solving the problems and choose the best and most effective method and technique to r each and implement the solution. In addition to that, the nurses that are able to think critically have the opportunity to strategize on their ideas, theories, concepts and plans that relate to patient care (Toren and Wagner, 2010). Nurses that think critically have always been precise, logical, accurate, clear and fair which basically are some of the characters and aspects that lead them to their success. Work Issue In this case study, the nurses involved failed to think critically by failing to communicate effectively with the pediatrician and also when they failed to keep observation records about the infants health condition. The two nurses did not seem to have made the logical or rational decision by not recording and documenting the infants observation. The nurses did not think of the consequences that would arise in case they failed to document their observations. Also, they did not consider the effects of failing to keep in touch with the pediatrician. In this case, they actually lacked the ability to think critically hence leading them towards making such mistakes and non-professional actions. It is important to note that if the nurses were critical thinkers, they would think better and come up with a plan to record and share information on their observation with the pediatrician. Professional Mandate Registered nurses must have passed through a nursing school to gain their training and knowledge on the profession. Registered nurses training is aimed at providing absolute and professional health care and support for the patients in hospitals and out of hospital, but require professional health care (Matsumoto et al, 2014), i.e. hospitals, schools and other private and public health care centers (Zahedi et al, 2013). In many professional practices, the parties involved ought to provide high quality services, especially in hospitals nurses are expected to be driven by professional values and professional accountability to take care and support the patients allocated to them.According to NMBA, all registered usually have one thing in common which is that they have passed through a nursing school, college or done a nursing university course and therefore have acquired the required knowledge, expertise and knowledge to practice the nursing profession. This means that these nurses have the mandate to provide exemplary nursing services to the patients that they attend to (Porter, 2012). However, their values and ethics will be effective only if they are able to coordinate effectively with their patients. A collaboration between the patients and the nurses will certainly be able to produce best results on nursing services towards better nourishment of the human life and health condition of the patients (Choi et al, 2014).Therefore, to be able to provide the intended health care and support to patients, a registered nurse must have the required skills and knowledge that will enable them to effectively collaborate with patients as well as their relatives. On the other hand, the Australian laws also offer protection to the regulatory organizations so that they are not entirely blamed for the nurses practices. In other words, nurses are guided and governed by laws and ethical codes that push them towards achieving their sole mandate, taking care of human life or rather saving human life (Bruton et al, 2016). In this case study, the nurses failed to carry out their mandate by not performing their specific roles and responsibilities. Technically, it is the responsibility of nurses to make patient observations, regular checkups, keeping and documenting patient records. However, in this case, the nurses failed to provide any record of the patient observations as well as failed to make effective communication with the pediatrician. According to Pavlish et al, 2011, the nurses are supposed to share the information about the childs observation with the pediatrician but they failed to keep in touch, never called, returned calls, provided any record of their observations which basically makes their actions ignorant and un professional. Conclusion Registered nurses are people who have passed through a thorough and intense training and education system. However, in the health industry, legal and ethical issues play a very crucial part in this industry simply because the parties are given authority over human life. In the case of the nurses, the ethics, laws and code of ethics are extremely fundamental to provide governance and guidance over their actions and overall practice. The nurses are the people who are involved with patients for longer periods than the doctors and therefore need close and frequent regulations and laws that will guide their actions about patient treatment and care. Generally, in a health sector, there are legal, ethical and professional guidelines which should be adhered to by the nurses, doctors and other practitioners. Therefore, they have the mandate to perform and practice their profession and provide quality care in the process. However, in Australia, the nursing profession requires certain skills an d qualifications like critical thinking, strong and effective communication skills, accountability and desire and determination to achieve required results. For instance, the nurses involved in the case study should have had the desire to save the childs life and not be ignorant about their profession. I addition to that they should have been ready to perform their roles and responsibilities by providing quality service and care e.g. through recording and documenting their observations as well as communication with the pediatrician about the infants health condition and their results. However, they failed to do all of that which basically may have led to the childs death. Therefore, it is important to ensure that every nurse is aware of the laws, ethics and professional standards that are expected of them in their practice. References Ballard, K., Haagenson, D., Christiansen, L., Damgaard, G., Halstead, J.A., Jason, R.R., Joyner, J.C., OSullivan, A.M., Silvestre, J., Cahill, M. and Radtke, B., 2016. Scope of Nursing Practice Decision-Making Framework.Journal of Nursing Regulation,7(3), pp.19-21. 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