Potential Ethical Challenges For Nurses

Nurses serving at combat zones are confronted with numerous ethical challenges. The primary duty of a nurse in combat is to provide rapid access to best of the nursing care to every member of the armed forces injured. The very act of experiencing, witnessing, participating in troubling events can undermine their humility. Harmful beliefs and attributions can cause guilt, shame and self-condemnation and cause moral injury9.
An act of serious transgression that leads to serious inner conflict because the experience is at odds with core ethical and moral beliefs is called “moral injury.”Litz et al have defined moral injury as “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs
They face conflicts over the best use of scarce resources. Conflicting roles and expectations of how one fills multiple responsibilities and obligations can place the health care professional in a difficult and ambiguous situation. Potential ethical conflicts between professional standards and other values, commitments, or interests become even more acute when health care professionals work in military environments. Nurses are more prone to compassion fatigue and behavioural health issues due to their ongoing exposure to emotionally draining
Fatigue and constant stress can impede clear thinking and they might not have enough time to consider and weigh all options. The very fact that the situation is unstable, possibly threatening and certainly different to every day practice makes reflection more difficult12. One of the most difficult ethical situations in the heat of battle can be in setting treatment priorities and triage for casualties. The combat nurses tasked with making difficult choices about scarce resources are at risk of developing moral injury, as most triage decisions are literal life and death decisions. Nonetheless, the overarching goal of providing the greatest good to the greatest number must guide these difficult