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    Ethics: Mike Dale

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    Miziey Zainie
    Ethics represent the framework that underpins a profession and its practice. They refer to how a profession is organized and conducted. Professional ethics establish guidelines for roles and boundaries. They also protect both professionals and vulnerable groups by guiding practitioners to act appropriately and establish trust. Ethical issues arise when there are conflicting moral claims in a situation, and determining the right course of action depends on how the situation is defined ethically and which values and principles are used.

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    Ethics: Mike Dale

    Uploaded by

    Miziey Zainie
    32 views28 pages
    Ethics represent the framework that underpins a profession and its practice. They refer to how a profession is organized and conducted. Professional ethics establish guidelines for roles and boundaries. They also protect both professionals and vulnerable groups by guiding practitioners to act appropriately and establish trust. Ethical issues arise when there are conflicting moral claims in a situation, and determining the right course of action depends on how the situation is defined ethically and which values and principles are used.

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    Ethics represent the framework that underpins a profession and its practice. They refer to how a profession is organized and conducted. Professional ethics establish guidelines for roles and boundaries. They also protect both professionals and vulnerable groups by guiding practitioners to act appropriately and establish trust. Ethical issues arise when there are conflicting moral claims in a situation, and determining the right course of action depends on how the situation is defined ethically and which values and principles are used.

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    32 views28 pages

    Ethics: Mike Dale

    Uploaded by

    Miziey Zainie
    Ethics represent the framework that underpins a profession and its practice. They refer to how a profession is organized and conducted. Professional ethics establish guidelines for roles and boundaries. They also protect both professionals and vulnerable groups by guiding practitioners to act appropriately and establish trust. Ethical issues arise when there are conflicting moral claims in a situation, and determining the right course of action depends on how the situation is defined ethically and which values and principles are used.

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    ETHICS

    Mike Dale

    Ethics are the observable representation of our values and morals. Their use in practice is one of the defining hallmarks of any profession. They represent the framework that underpins the work of the professional.

    Ethics refer to the way in which the occupation is practiced, organised, managed and planned (Hugman and Smith 1995 p.2)

    Professional ethics relate to


    Morals and values in practice Guidelines for role completion Role boundaries

    Some people define nursing ethics as part of bioethics since the same knowledge base is often used.

    Ethical Issues/Problems/ Dilemmas- Definition and Types


    Ethical issues/problems/dilemmas are situations in which there are conflicting moral claims. In some of these situations people:
    Do not know what the ethically right thing to do is. Do not agree about the ethically right thing to do. Can find no satisfactory solution or there are two equally unsatisfactory solutions. Know what the ethically right thing to do is, but do not want to act on this.

    Why do we define some events as ethical issues or problems?

    There are several reasons:


    The definition of the human being, the person, the family Our cultural values that have developed over time and have been influenced by philosophy and religion. These may differ in the east and the west because of the different sources that have shaped our ethics. The ideals, developed in the 17th and 18th centuries called the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, influenced values in the West. Emphasis on individual rights. Less emphasis on obligations. Certain values are perquisite to ethical principles.

    Developments in science and technology that have changed certain events When is the foetus a person? Impact of Reproductive Technology in general. Information about the foetus- malformed, gender. With knowledge comes responsibility. Use of genetic knowledge/information/screening. Will this knowledge change our understanding of what it is to be human? Will it erase the notion of the sanctity of human life? Some scientists already say, there is not such thing as race since we are alike genetically. When is a person terminally ill? When is a person dead?

    How you decide what is the ethically right thing to do will depend on how you ethically define the situation and which values and ethical principles you use.

    Virtue Ethics
    Asks about the character of the person. What characteristics make the Good Nurse? Compassion (What does it mean to be compassionate in a specific situation?)

    Principle Based Ethics


    Asks: What is the ethically right action to take in a given situation? Autonomy- Adult competent patients right to decide Do No Harm- very old medical/nursing ethical principle. Meaning of Harm? Do Good- Meaning of Good? Justice fair distribution of burdens/benefits in society. How decide? Rule of Truth Telling. Should we always tell the truth? What is Truth? Rule of Promise Keeping- Is there anything that might justify not keeping a promise we have made?

    An act is ethical if it brings about the Greatest Good.

    This does NOT always mean the act must bring about good for EVERYONE

    Caring Ethics:
    Asks:
    Ethically what should the nature of this relationship be? What do we mean by caring? Must every relationship be caring? Must every encounter that a nurse has with a patient be caring? Do all patients want a caring relationship with a nurse or is this an idea that comes from nursing?

    Clinical Ethical Issues


    Many ethical issues arise when dealing with the beginning of human life or the end of human life and the use of technology. Often they are viewed as clinical problems but not ethical problems.

    Is lying to a patient ever ethical? What constitutes a lie? Is a placebo a lie? Ethically, what should the nurse do when she/he does not like the patient and realizes that she/he is not responding to this patient? Should patients be involved in the decisions about their own medical treatment?
    What if the patient is a teenager? An old person? A hospitalized mental patient?

    Should the nurse follow a doctors order if she/he thinks there is a potential problem with the order?

    Two ethical principles are:


    Do No Harm Do Good.

    What do we mean by Harm and Good?

    Health professionals have 2 basic ethical obligations:


    to extend life (sanctity of human life) to lessen pain and suffering (do no harm).

    Can they do both in this situation when morphine may shorten patients life?

    Issues of Justice:
    Should more money be spent on prevention than on acute care and especially on terminal care? How can you ethically justify spending money on futile medical care? How can we justify futile treatment when by definition this treatment will not benefit the patient? Is there any futile nursing care? Is all nursing care beneficial? Policy/law - what policy/law should a society have to be ethical? What is the best balance between personal individual choice and the common good?

    For the first time in human history, societies have many older people. Older people use more health services than other age groups. Decisions that are made in various societies will be ethical decisions based on definitions and values.

    According to WHO information, Long Term Care (LTC) is a major health and social problem for both developed and developing countries. This will increase. But monies are still allocated for diseases such as malaria, TB, etc. and not for LTC.

    Therefore The nature of the profession, their goals, and their professional knowledge may lead to their professional ethics conflicting with the values, morals and ethics of society For example: children being taken into care.

    In other words the goals of the profession may not always be acceptable to every member of society (Hugman and Smith 1995)

    Specialist knowledge
    brings with it authority and power Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely (Acton 1887)

    Ethics
    therefore Protect and guide the professional in doing the right thing

    and establish trust

    Ethics
    ..also Protect the vulnerable from exploitation

    abuse

    Professional practice
    A consideration of ethical issues is an essential quality of the reflective practitioner. There are rarely right or wrong answers to ethical dilemmas but more often balances that have to be found between conflicting principles.

    Codes
    Codes of Ethics - statements of the values and principles that define the purpose of an organisation. These codes may simply espouse a set of guiding values or principles, or they may be used to ascribe them in such a way that they belong to employees and are embedded in their consciousness in which case they become the employee values. Codes of Practice - which guide and direct decision-making. These codes can be used to guide choices, by supplying grounds or premises for choice while leaving options open. Alternatively, they may direct or otherwise govern the choices to be made, leaving little room for discretion. Codes of Conduct or Behaviour - prescribe or proscribe certain behaviour. Therefore they may prescribe what will be done, and how - leaving little room for discretion; alternatively they may proscribe what may not be done, leaving a space for the exercise of discretion.

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