Nursing Ethical Dilemmas: Professional Moral Compass In Nursing
Professional Moral Compass
Kelly Ross
Grand Canyon University: NRS437V-O103 Ethical Decision Making in Healthcare
June 15, 2014
Professional Moral Compass A moral compass is defined as: “anything which serves to guide a person’s decisions based on morals or virtues” (moral compass, n.d.). In this paper, the writer will examine what defines her nursing moral compass by taking the reader through her personal nursing ethic, how her personal, cultural and spiritual values have influenced her and what moral and ethical dilemmas she has faced in her nursing career. As this is a personal account, the first section of this paper will be written in first person.
My Moral Compass: My Nursing Ethic
PASSION: Why am I here? I am here due to my desire to nurture and care for others. It took me nearly forty years to figure it out. I had always been one to put others before myself, the mom that opened her doors to neighborhood children and give them love and hot meals, even when I had little for myself. I didn’t choose to be a nurse, nursing chose me.
MOTIVATION: What moves me to act?
My motivation is the firsthand knowledge of how important a nurse is to her …show more content…
patients. I once spent nearly four months hospitalized from having surgery to remove a tumor from my pancreas go bad. I spent several months in a hospital four hours from my home without visitors and unable to make long distance calls. This was when cell phones were the big clunky things installed in cars and only dial-up existed for internet. One of my nurses also played the cello in an orchestra out of Martha’s Vineyard and she could see how alone I was. She brought me in her personal CD player and a few CD’s, including one performed by her orchestra. She told me she could tell I needed music in my life and hoped I would appreciate her taste in music. It was the most touching thing anyone had ever done for me. I am motivated to touch someone’s life the way this nurse had touched mine.
INSPIRATION: What keeps me in motion?
My inspiration to keep going is that voice that tells me at least once a day, “Thank you for caring”.
LOYALTY: Whom do I serve?
The population I now serve is the geriatric population. I work for a healthcare informatics company as a clinical communications center nurse. On behalf of health plans with Medicare Advantage policies, I call the members to follow up on medication adherence, some disease management, preventative screenings and teaching. Our goal is to assist the health plans in improving their Medicare star ratings, thereby improving reimbursement. Most days I really love my job and the sense of accomplishment I get when I am thanked for the call and the help I have given. Other days, I wonder if I will ever get to actually do hands on nursing care.
Influence of Personal, Cultural and Spiritual Values A person’s own integrity makes up a large part of not just their personal values but their professional values (Purtilo & Doherty, 2011). This writer has found that she is highly influenced by honesty and beneficence. When someone is untruthful it is hard to gain their trust, as trust is one of the first components of the nurse patient relationship, this writer feels honesty needs to be exhibited at every instance except where it may cause irreparable harm. Beneficence is doing good for the benefit of others. This is what nurses do and long before this writer began her pursuit of becoming a nurse, she was involved in many charities, some of her own making, for example, a co-worker’s daughter and family lost everything they owned in a fire. This writer had been outraged that the company she worked for did not make an effort to help out the family of one of their own. This organization had a reputation for helping others in the community. This writer feels that her cultural and spiritual values are one and the same. She is of a faith that believes in “choosing the right”, this goes way more than just attending services on Sundays. This includes being of service, to God and to others. This also means you do not break laws or operate dishonestly.
Moral and Ethical Dilemmas This writer has been a nurse for just exactly one year.
In her current and only professional practice, there are not many moral or ethical dilemmas she comes across. Actually, she can not think of one instance. In nursing school, however, she had a community rotation where she was supposed to go to a clinic where abortions were performed and she may have been asked to assist in one. This was both a moral and ethical dilemma that went against all that she believed in. This is a huge controversial subject and this writer soon learned that a nurse could refuse to participate in an abortion but could not refuse to care for the woman before or after the procedure. This writer was able to avoid even being asked as on her assigned date, a snow emergency had been
declared.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this writer feels she has expressed her moral compass in a way that the reader will be able to understand her nursing ethics.
References moral compass. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com 's 21st Century Lexicon. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/moral compass
Purtilo, R. B., & Doherty, R. F. (2011). Ethical dimensions in the health professions (5th ed.). St Louis, MO: Elsevier Saunders. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from Pageburst Online Elsevier Learning.
Kelly Ross
Grand Canyon University: NRS437V-O103 Ethical Decision Making in Healthcare
June 15, 2014
Professional Moral Compass A moral compass is defined as: “anything which serves to guide a person’s decisions based on morals or virtues” (moral compass, n.d.). In this paper, the writer will examine what defines her nursing moral compass by taking the reader through her personal nursing ethic, how her personal, cultural and spiritual values have influenced her and what moral and ethical dilemmas she has faced in her nursing career. As this is a personal account, the first section of this paper will be written in first person.
My Moral Compass: My Nursing Ethic
PASSION: Why am I here? I am here due to my desire to nurture and care for others. It took me nearly forty years to figure it out. I had always been one to put others before myself, the mom that opened her doors to neighborhood children and give them love and hot meals, even when I had little for myself. I didn’t choose to be a nurse, nursing chose me.
MOTIVATION: What moves me to act?
My motivation is the firsthand knowledge of how important a nurse is to her …show more content…
patients. I once spent nearly four months hospitalized from having surgery to remove a tumor from my pancreas go bad. I spent several months in a hospital four hours from my home without visitors and unable to make long distance calls. This was when cell phones were the big clunky things installed in cars and only dial-up existed for internet. One of my nurses also played the cello in an orchestra out of Martha’s Vineyard and she could see how alone I was. She brought me in her personal CD player and a few CD’s, including one performed by her orchestra. She told me she could tell I needed music in my life and hoped I would appreciate her taste in music. It was the most touching thing anyone had ever done for me. I am motivated to touch someone’s life the way this nurse had touched mine.
INSPIRATION: What keeps me in motion?
My inspiration to keep going is that voice that tells me at least once a day, “Thank you for caring”.
LOYALTY: Whom do I serve?
The population I now serve is the geriatric population. I work for a healthcare informatics company as a clinical communications center nurse. On behalf of health plans with Medicare Advantage policies, I call the members to follow up on medication adherence, some disease management, preventative screenings and teaching. Our goal is to assist the health plans in improving their Medicare star ratings, thereby improving reimbursement. Most days I really love my job and the sense of accomplishment I get when I am thanked for the call and the help I have given. Other days, I wonder if I will ever get to actually do hands on nursing care.
Influence of Personal, Cultural and Spiritual Values A person’s own integrity makes up a large part of not just their personal values but their professional values (Purtilo & Doherty, 2011). This writer has found that she is highly influenced by honesty and beneficence. When someone is untruthful it is hard to gain their trust, as trust is one of the first components of the nurse patient relationship, this writer feels honesty needs to be exhibited at every instance except where it may cause irreparable harm. Beneficence is doing good for the benefit of others. This is what nurses do and long before this writer began her pursuit of becoming a nurse, she was involved in many charities, some of her own making, for example, a co-worker’s daughter and family lost everything they owned in a fire. This writer had been outraged that the company she worked for did not make an effort to help out the family of one of their own. This organization had a reputation for helping others in the community. This writer feels that her cultural and spiritual values are one and the same. She is of a faith that believes in “choosing the right”, this goes way more than just attending services on Sundays. This includes being of service, to God and to others. This also means you do not break laws or operate dishonestly.
Moral and Ethical Dilemmas This writer has been a nurse for just exactly one year.
In her current and only professional practice, there are not many moral or ethical dilemmas she comes across. Actually, she can not think of one instance. In nursing school, however, she had a community rotation where she was supposed to go to a clinic where abortions were performed and she may have been asked to assist in one. This was both a moral and ethical dilemma that went against all that she believed in. This is a huge controversial subject and this writer soon learned that a nurse could refuse to participate in an abortion but could not refuse to care for the woman before or after the procedure. This writer was able to avoid even being asked as on her assigned date, a snow emergency had been
declared.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this writer feels she has expressed her moral compass in a way that the reader will be able to understand her nursing ethics.
References moral compass. (n.d.). In Dictionary.com 's 21st Century Lexicon. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/moral compass
Purtilo, R. B., & Doherty, R. F. (2011). Ethical dimensions in the health professions (5th ed.). St Louis, MO: Elsevier Saunders. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from Pageburst Online Elsevier Learning.