Page length: 5-7 pages, not including references or title page, double-spaced, in APA format

Audience/Context:

You are a nurse practitioner on a healthcare team that encounters a bioethical dilemma, as described in your approved case study. Your team has asked you to prepare a report summarizing all information relevant to the case, concluding with a justification for your recommended course of action.

Why is this assignment important?

Nurses and healthcare teams encounter bioethical problems in their work. This assignment will prepare you for making ethically sound decisions using a methodical approach to ensure all pertinent information and issues are considered. This written exercise is to be regarded as vital preparation and practice for writing the Masters Comprehensive Examination. It also meets objective #6: Evaluate a patient care dilemma using a bioethical framework.

What is the task?

You will describe an ethical dilemma in healthcare, identify the competing values and ethical principles involved, consider various courses of action, and make a recommendation based on an established ethical decision-making framework (Robichaux ) and sound reasoning.

How should I complete the task?

1. Choose a case study with a bioethical issue. Review the choices in the “Course Resources” tab in Blackboard. You can write your own case but it must be submitted for approval by the instructor.

2. Read the “Good Reasons” article as an exemplar.

3. Review the ethical framework from Robichaux in the “e-reserves” tab in Blackboard . (If you have another ethical framework you would like to use, please submit a copy of the framework with your paper and cite it in your references.)

4. Select the most appropriate framework to use in your case study.

5. Use the basic outline below to organize your analysis of the issue.

6. Consult the rubric for an explanation of the criteria that will be used for grading this assignment.

Recommended Outline

I. Summary of case study

II. Describe ethical framework

III. Identify ethical issues and research gaps or ambiguities 

a. Research all information needed to analyze the case, including law, historical case precedents, medical facts, statistics, research, etc.

IV. Define ethical issue and state ethical question(s) 

V. Identify key stakeholders, their presumed values, and any power imbalances

VI. State ethical principles in tension

VII. Describe at least two courses of action for healthcare team to consider

a. Develop arguments for and against possible actions

b. State the possible consequences of each

VIII. Choose a course of action and provide an explanation to justify why it is the most ethical option