Nurse’s ethical role to protect and advocate for the patient

Nurse’s ethical role to protect and advocate for the patient

Throughout this course, we have studied the nurse’s ethical role to protect and advocate for the patient. Does the health care organization have the same obligation to advocate and protect the nurse, especially when human error has devastating effects on the patient?

Journal Reflection #1

Does the health care organization have an ethical obligation to care for the patient, the employee, or both? Please defend your answer by citing at least one reference to the ANA code of ethics. (350 words, 10 pts)

Journal Reflection #2

If you made a medication error that did not harm the patient, is it unethical to not report it? (150 words, 10 pts)

Journal Reflection #3

Health care practitioners are exposed to an incredible amount of emotional turmoil as noted in the article, what means of support would you utilize for yourself to help deal with this emotional turmoil? (350 words, 10 pts)

Final Reflection (100 points)

Please write a three-to-five-page paper addressing the following questions:

• How does your worldview influence your understanding of ethics?

• Why is ethics important for health care? (Reference at least two ethical theories discussed in this course and their relevance to health care.)

• What does it mean to be a patient advocate, and why is that important?

• In your own words, what is compassionate nursing?

• How can you avoid burnout as a medical practitioner related to emotional turmoil?

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.