What factors should be considered when dealing with decisions where the nurse and patient hold differing values?
Assignment: Outcomes of Patient Empowerment
What factors should be considered when dealing with decisions where the nurse and patient hold differing values?
When both the patient and the nurse hold varying decisions, it is the duty of the nurse to alienate their own values and beliefs for the general benefit of the patient. If it happens that the nurse has a dissimilar value than the given patient then the nurse has to respect the patient’s wishes regardless of how they may feel (Burkhardt, & Nathaniel, 2013). For instance, I had a patient whose culture believed that avoiding eye contact is a sign of respect to the nurse and the health care practitioner. However, this is contrary to my own culture which states that avoiding eye contact could be disrespectful and even suspicious. Thus, because I did not want to offend the patient, I handled them using the cultural belief.
Give one example of a situation where patient empowerment might pose an ethical dilemma for a nurse
When working with the patients, nurses will always have a number of occasions when they have to consider nursing ethical principles to help with difficult types of situations. An example of a scenario where patient empowerment might subject a nurse to ethical dilemma is a case of disclosing medical conditions. This entails telling the truth to a given patient versus being deceptive. The nurse is obliged to the patient and various available ethical principles regarding nonmleficence and cases of fidelity support that obligation (Burkhardt, & Nathaniel, 2013). This entails the obligation of preventing harm and that of remaining faithful to their colleagues. Nevertheless, the values of the nurses regarding telling the truth must also be respected.
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Patients rarely disagree with the clinicians who are attending to them. In the case of a disagreement, under a number of
Assignment Outcomes of Patient Empowerment
Assignment Outcomes of Patient Empowerment
circumstances, this may lead to their capacity of making decisions becoming questionable (Castro et al., 2016). If a patient makes unwise decisions, it becomes pertinent that a nurse questions whether they possess the capacity to undertake the said decision. For instance, I was in a situation where a certain patient refused life-saving treatment. Alongside the doctor, we deduced that the patient lacked the capacity to comprehend, retain as well as weigh the relevant information.
Should there be limits on patient empowerment?
There must be limit given to patient empowerment since it’s never the answer to all the nursing issues. Research have to be conducted to help with clarifying and tightening up the ideology of patient empowerment and make sure that the clinicians and patients alike have consensus on that which is important (Castro et al., 2016). Having said that there needs to be a limit to patient empowerment since the belief that more information leads to better decision-making is fallacious.
For this discussion, you will answer the following questions:
What factors should be considered when dealing with decisions where the nurse and patient hold differing values?
Give one example of a situation where patient empowerment might pose an ethical dilemma for you.
If you feel a patient is making an unwise decision, how would you respond?
Should there be limits on patient empowerment?
Your initial post must contain minimum of two (2) references, in addition to examples from your personal experiences to augment the topic. The goal is to make your post interesting and engaging so others will want to read/respond to it. Synthesize and summarize from your resources in order to avoid the use of direct quotes, which can often be dry and boring. No direct quotes are allowed in the discussion board posts.
Initial Post: Minimum of two (2) total references: one (1) from required course materials (Burkhardt., & Nathaniel, . (2013). Ethics and Issues in Contemporary Nursing, 4e. Cengage Learning.)
and one (1) from peer-reviewed references.
Words Limits
Initial Post: Minimum 200 words excluding references (approximately one (1) page).