Nursing as a profession involves taking care of human health, feelings, and various physical needs. Congestion is often widespread during the performance of duties and obligations, making it hard to practice integrity. The intricacy of dealing with patients and their ever-changing, challenging, but essential requests lead to a moral impasse that can cause legal reparation. Therefore, the paper will examine the imminent and imperative legal-ethical dilemma that nurse practitioners face.
The conviction of patients to fulfill advanced practice nurses constructive demands related to the recovery process in accordance with moral norms can be considered an urgent legal-ethical dilemma. In some cases, nurse practitioners implement methods of persuasion, which can be compared with intimidation. This approach results in the deterioration of the relationship between patients and medical staff in general. This legal-ethical dilemma reveals the imperfectness of persuasion methods, which assist in convincing patients to fulfill nurse practitioners requirements.
An example of an urgent legal-ethical dilemma is the one reported and described by a practicing nurse and a patient, Marylyn (Marylyn, 2018). The caring nurse needed Marylyn to be up and walk after the surgical procedure. This requirement made her uncomfortable, and she refused despite being agitated the nurse who threatened her. The patient lost her confidence in the facility and was bothered by the rude relationship she had. According to Marylyn (2018), advanced practice nurses’ ethical expectations should have guided them on the proper way to handle their patients and not use intimidation or create fear. It was unlikely, unethical, and unprofessional to cause distress and threaten a patient with death under any circumstances.
Hostile work environments in organizations, stress, and personal reasons contribute to the factors that can lead to the healthcare workers facing a moral-legal quandary. Considering Marylyn’s experience, it is evident that the nurse was under dilemma based on how she had handled the patient. According to Aitamaa et al. (2019), moral conflicts are mainly felt when related to patient and nurse discretion and patient desires meeting. Communication between the nurse and the patient was not professional due to the probable impasse which the nurse was experiencing.
Communication between practicing nurses and patients is expected to be professional, encouraging, and create a positive ambiance. Inappropriate communication methods made Marylyn’s trust and faith in the facility drop, such that it could have led to legal redress if she could have pursued the matter further. Despite these setbacks, nurses anticipate to sustain philosophies and meet patients’ sophisticated wants, obligations, and qualities foundational to the nursing occupation.
Solving ethical impasses for advanced practice nurses requires an application of improved communication methods. To resolve the dilemma, nurses and the involved organizations can use literature that contains codes of ethics, professionals, and enhanced combined decision-making systems (Aitamaa et al., 2019). Adverse organizational outcomes, which partly contribute to the anguish, should also be considered while dealing with the problem. External knowledge combined with moral pronouncement and principled reasoning could, in a significant way, help in solving the challenges nurses face.
An APRN colleague who could be experiencing a legal-moral stalemate would be advised as follows. Firstly, they should discover the reasons behind the ethical dilemma. Possible triggers are personal stress or a hostile working environment, among other reasons. Thus, they will be able to follow the right route in seeking a solution. Secondly, the correct approach to patients, who felt wrongly communicated, should be taken in finding a method to ease the pressure. For instance, apologizing and providing a conducive work environment by the organization. In severe cases, the administration and experts could be involved. In conclusion, the legal-ethical dilemma remains urgent and essential. Hence, it is advisible to solve it as soon as possible to ensure that patients, the organization, and society as a whole are not affected by its consequences.
References
Aitamaa, E., Suhonen, R., Puukka, P., & Leino-Kilpi, H. (2019). Ethical problems in nursing management- a cross-sectional survey about solving problems. BMC Health Services Research, 19. Web.
Marylyn. (2018). Ethical issues. Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. American Journal of Nursing, 118(3). Web.