Examples Of Ethical Dilemmas In Nursing

This is a legal and ethical condition because this patient Mr. John with end stage destructive prostate cancer who had been confirmed by the physicians that he only has a 2-3 week to live expresses the suicide effort to a nursing staff and asks nurse do not notify others. This is an ethical dilemma because of this behavior of patient put the healthcare team members in a hard situation. According to the Beauchamp and Walter (2003), they clearly defined an ethical dilemma as a condition that happens when an individual must make a choice among mutually restricted alternatives. Chally and Loric (1998), clearly pointed out, that an ethical dilemma at all times occurs when “a moral problem involving two or more mutually exclusive, morally correct
Nevertheless, in this ethical problem, the nursing staff's conclusion may possibly cause the patient truly commit suicide without any healthcare intervention. In here, the health care team would be involved in monitoring, prevention and avoiding suicide, if the nursing team members chose to tell other health care team members regarding patient’s suicide attempt, however, the patient's autonomy, confidentiality will be completely violated by that judgment. For that reason, the major ethical dilemma of this case can be identified as ‘if he nursing staff should notify other health care team members regarding patient's suicide attempt not including patient's consent. When examining this great ethical issue inside the clinical environment, ethical principles should be concern clearly. According to some research studies, the researchers agreed on the affiliation between the ethical dilemmas and ethical principles. As recognized by Johnston (2009), the logical incompatibility between two principles can cause the ethical dilemmas, especially in the ethical situation that two different ethical principles can be applied, nevertheless using one principle must violate the other principle when evaluating this