INCOMPETENT NURSES

INCOMPETENT NURSES

For an ethical issue to occur, certain choices must be made, and these particular choices are not clear or ideal to the perspective of the specific individual. One major problem facing the medical fraternity is incompetence in nurses. Incompetence refers to the lack of an individual nurse to practice and fully exercise any professional registered nurse’s learning skills and care (Fukada,2018). For instance, an incompetent nurse may fail to monitor a patient due to personal reasons, which may lead to fatal consequences as the patient may develop complications that may lead to fatalities. Incompetence results in a decline in the quality of patient care or even cause moral distress, which may affect a nurse’s functional capability in duty. Incompetence sometimes can be viewed as a nurse having knowledge of what she is supposed to do but not being allowed to do it due to circumstances such as doctor’s instructions that may be biased or the nurse’s mere ignorance of the task hand. When it comes to a situation where a nurse was incompetent due to a lack of proper equipment to use during a dire situation, this becomes an ethical dilemma. Since the nurse is to be blamed for incompetence and simultaneously, it seems wrong as the proper nursing equipment to save the patient was not available. Also, in other instances, some nurses lack adequate knowledge on particular health care and either decide to follow their conscience on the little they know or ask for help from their fellow nurses. This also promotes incompetence as coworkers face an ethical dilemma as to report or not, and any decision they take has consequences to either patients or the individual nurse. Malpractice among nurses causes lives and life sustain injuries no matter the reason of the failure in duty; hence rules and code of ethics guide nurses and medical practitioners worldwide and provide consequences in case of an occurrence in any medical facility. INCOMPETENT NURSES

Nurses are crucial elements in the healthcare system. Doctors treat patients, but nurses care for the patients and monitor their wellbeing; hence they have a more defined relationship with patients than doctors in any medical facility (Fukada, 2018). A positive-built relationship is essential for better health care provision in any medical environment. Moral values instilled by a nurse can shape this relationship. These moral values form the ethical dimensions of nursing. In any healthcare situation, ethical issues can arise where moral questions of “right” or “wrong ” trigger the decision made and the care given to the patients. Incompetence or competence in nursing can be categorized as an aspect of moral values instilled by a particular nurse. For instance, a lack of patient monitoring can be termed as a lack of moral values by the nurse on duty. Exploring these moral values helps analyze and prove insights on a better approach to specific ethical situations and why they happen. Checking our case on incompetence is an ethical issue since incompetence can be associated with a lack of morals by a professionally trained nurse. INCOMPETENT NURSES

Incompetence among healthcare professionals have dire consequences globally. Any health professional knows that upholding moral values in work is more important than any other prevailing factor. Nurses have every reason to act with integrity and good morals since most patients rely on their care. Incompetence can occur due to various underlying issues. For instance, the problems can be caused by a particular patient’s perspective on a medical practitioner, and this may cause retaliation by the medical personnel. This mainly occurs to nurses since they spend more time with patients in hospitals. Patients tend to make decisions that are at most times at odds with what physicians believe to be appropriate. Despite this, it is expected that a trained medical professional should come up with a decision that is neither biased nor against the rules and regulations of the medical world. For instance, a patient with a different cultural background may be in conflict with a medical personnel decision as it may be against culture. This should be treated with outermost logic reasoning by a health practitioner treating patients who have a different view or perspective the same as other people may be discriminatory as treating people differently despite the fact, they have similar characters. Good ethics does not require any medical professional to treat patients the same as this may lead to incompetence due to aggressive decisions that seem best at the time. The best way is to treat all patients equitably, considering any relevant differences and choosing an appropriate method to handle the upcoming issue. INCOMPETENT NURSES

The code of ethics is a term that refers to statements that provide an ethical standard for the nursing profession and also acts as a guide to nurses in decision making. Nursing entails different aspects from illness prevention to restoration of health among individuals, families, and communities. A nurse’s primary goal is to change any feature in the social structure that undermines a particular population’s health and wellbeing. A competent nurse is expected to follow the values and moral norms and embrace them, making them part of their daily life guide at work. A code of ethics designed for the nursing profession clarifies the primary obligation and carefully lays out the profession’s ideals. The code of ethics acts as an element that provides a nursing’s understanding of the commitments they have in society. The code of ethics defines how ethical obligations can be met but does not necessarily decide how the laid obligation is to be completed. The moral obligations can be met individually, or a colleague can support a nurse to execute the obligations. Ethical obligations apply to nurses in all roles, including volunteers, clinical care providers, or researchers; they need to observe the ethical regulations set. The code of ethics is designed to express both individual and collective nursing intentions, and every registered nurse is required to demonstrate moral competence in the medical services offered.

The code of ethics first designed statements can be dated back to the late 1800s in the American nurse association foundation. The ethical guidelines were formally implemented in 1950. Seventy-one years since the implementation of the first nursing code of ethics, the nursing profession has changed significantly since there are substantial developments in the medical world than before. The professional practice has since been altered and the determinants of illness have grown all over the globe (Olson, 2016, et al.). The nursing code of ethics reflects the nursing ethical heritage and acts as a guide for present and future nurses. Comment by HonMun: The first sentences designed in the code of ethics can be dated back to… INCOMPETENT NURSES

The nursing code of ethics contains two crucial components: ‘the provisions and accompanying interpretative statement.’ In the code of ethics, there are nine essential and relational provisions: nurse to patient, nurse to nurse, nurse to self, nurse to others, nurse to the profession, and nurse to the nursing society. The first three requirements describe the most important values for any professional nurse. The following three, then address the relationship between the nurse as a person and the work, which is the profession. The last three, finally explain the responsibility given to a nurse even beyond caring for any individual patient. Each of the requirements is complimented by interpretive statements that provide a greater understanding of the nursing practice and the ethical values required (Olson, 2016, et al.). Comment by HonMun: Citation missing

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According to the nursing ethical codes, nurses must practice their skills with compassion, respect, and care for every individual despite the circumstance or the indifference they might have. Biasedness against any individual despite deeds, culture, or any other prevailing factor should be avoided and the difference considered while caring if the patient feels the need to. Treatment with prejudice is regarded as an ethical concern in the medical profession. We will discuss the following under three major subtopics: INCOMPETENT NURSES

Respect for human dignity

This is a fundamental principle that applies to all nurses. Respect for human dignity and worth is crucial as every individual has a right to better and sufficient health care provided by a medical practitioner. The right to health care is a universal need. It should apply to each person who might need medical care despite the condition the particular individual is in. nurses are required to respect each person’s values in their professional relationship and give adequate care.

Relationship with patients.

Nurses develop a strong bond with patients since they are supposedly the caregivers and offer medical support and emotional support to the patients. A nurse needs to take care of any patient despite the looks, color, tribe, nationality, or other factors. Biasness of prejudice should be set aside, and the primary focus should be the patients’ health (Olson, 2016, et al.). Then planning any medical move on a patient, no matter how essential it is, factors such as lifestyle, culture, religious and spiritual beliefs should be considered and weighed. Good advice is given to the patient. The important thing is that the patient’s decisions should be respected, and the nurse does not have to agree but comply since it is the patient’s want. INCOMPETENT NURSES

Right to self-determination

Patients have a right to determine and choose preferred choices of what medical action might be taken upon them. The medical personnel must give adequate and complementary information to the patient for the patient to make a comprehensive decision about the matter. The patients should be assisted in weighting the benefits, burden, and possible choices that seem better and more sufficient. Nurses provide patients with assistance on the necessary decisions to make clear, which seem more beneficial to the particular current situation of the patient.

Values can be defined as goals and beliefs that help establish behavior and decision-making among people. In any professional set up, values are standards set to guide any professional on behavioral conduct. Preferred experts set these standards, and they establish a model framework for behavior evaluation. Nursing is an experience embedded with professional ethics and ethical values. Without these values, the medical fraternity would have many faults due to a lack of rational decision-making, which in this case rational means ethical decision-making (Poorchangizi,2019, et al.). Ethical practices and teachings should be more weighted to a higher degree in different medical schools since ethics is the most important in a nurse’s life. Lack of ethical conduct has a lot of disadvantages to the medical fraternity. To prevent incompetence among nurses, ethics should be made more aware and tough disciplinary measures set for any medical practitioner who would deviate from the required ethical obligations. INCOMPETENT NURSES

In conclusion, nurses are an essential aspect of the healthcare’s system. They deal with patients in their most critical moments and share happiness and sadness, pain and suffering from the patients and the families at large. Since they have a significant impact in the medical world, it is essential that more awareness and better training is given to young upcoming nurses for better and quality health care providence. It should be made clear to each qualified nurse the importance of the codes of ethics as they help raise the health standards since a nurse with upheld moral values will deliver services better and make the world a better to place to live in. INCOMPETENT NURSES

References

Fukada, M. (2018). Nursing competency: Definition, structure, and development. Yonago Acta Medica61(1), 001-007.

Olson, L. L., & Stokes, F. (2016). The ANA code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements: Resource for nursing regulation. Journal of Nursing Regulation7(2), 9-20.

Poorchangizi, B., Borhani, F., Abbaszadeh, A., Mirzaee, M., & Farokhzadian, J. (2019). The importance of professional values from nursing students’ perspective. BMC nursing18(1), 1-7 INCOMPETENT NURSES

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