NURS 112: Exhaustive Notes on Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing

Learning Competencies

Describes steps in ethical decision-making models and strategies helpful to nurses.

Ethical Dilemmas

Common issues in medical-surgical nursing, including informed consent and advance directives.

Advance Directives

Documents communicating wishes regarding end-of-life and medical treatment.

Utilitarianism

Ethical theory focused on the greatest good for the greatest number.

Deontology

Focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves (duty-based ethics).

American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics

Comprises 9 provisions in three focus areas regarding nursing values and duties.

Values of the Nursing Profession

Includes altruism, human dignity, integrity, autonomy, and social justice.

Ethical Principles

Key principles include beneficence, autonomy, justice, fidelity, nonmaleficence, and veracity.

Process for Ethical Decision-Making

Steps include identifying the dilemma, applying ethical principles, and reviewing the decision.

Moral Distress

Caused by exposure to unethical practices and lack of autonomous decision-making.

HIPAA

Governs sharing of patient information and maintains confidentiality.

Provider Responsibility in Informed Consent

Includes explaining treatment, risks, benefits, and patient rights.

Competency vs Capacity

Competency is a legal determination; capacity is a clinical determination about decision-making.

Involuntary Admission

Types include informed, temporary emergency, and involuntary long-term admissions.

Client Rights in Mental Health

Include right to informed care, right to refuse, and freedom from harm.

Ethical Responsibilities for Nurses

Advocacy, responsibility, accountability, and confidentiality.

Ethical Theories

Include consensus in bioethics, ethic of care, and natural law.

Psychiatric Ethics

Prioritizes autonomy and addresses ethical challenges in behavior control interventions.

Patient Bill of Rights

Includes rights to confidentiality, involvement in care decisions, and to refuse care.

Types of Advance Directives

Living wills, psychiatric advance directives, durable power of attorney for healthcare, and POLST.

Case Study: The Confidential Diagnosis

Highlights dilemma of balancing patient confidentiality with the need to protect others.

Beneficence

The ethical principle of doing good and providing benefit to others.

Autonomy

The right of individuals to make decisions about their own lives and bodies.

Justice

The ethical principle of fairness, ensuring equal treatment and distribution of benefits and burdens.

Fidelity

The ethical principle of being faithful to commitments and obligations.

Nonmaleficence

The ethical principle of 'do no harm'—to avoid causing harm to patients.

Veracity

The ethical principle of truthfulness, ensuring honesty in communication and actions.