According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), Public Health Nursing is a professional health sector that deals with activism, education advocacy and evaluation of the human response to promote health safety for the community. However, there are ethical obligations that the nurses are subject to following in their responsibilities of carrying out their professional duties. Ethical dilemmas impede the smooth functioning of the nurses in the process of attending to the patients’ critical conditions. The discussion below scrutinizes the different codes of ethics for Public Health Nurses, how the codes are applied in the professional obligations of nursing and the assumptions surrounding Nursing. The main aim of the discussion is to reveal the primary education about Nursing and how the nurses are expected to handle the health issues of the patients.
The codes of ethics for nurses rely on the assertion that human beings are very much vulnerable, and therefore there is need to abide by the set of morals which allow us to live without worry of destruction (Fowler 2015). Nurses are usually entrusted with handling the health-related issues, which may involve dilemmas of attending to individual patients or society. The nurses encounter some struggles in the process of engaging the patients in questions or handling some airborne diseases like Ebola, drug abuse and pregnancy-related issues. The code of conduct is influenced by moral distress, a situation where the perfect action to a problem is known, but it is challenging to carry it out. Moral distress is a factor that is mostly contributed by poor ethical climates, poor fulfillment of the job requirements and ethical dilemmas in attending critical issues.
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The code of ethics is helpful for both the individual nurses and the whole medical fraternity in building a cohesive working environment to prevent moral distress. Therefore, the code of conduct recognizes the life of every person in the health sector and the efforts of each nurse. Purposefully, the central area of concern lies in the commitment to protecting the life of the patients, their rights and safety of their health (Epstein & Turner 2015). The code of ethics, also, gives the nurses the authority to work according to the best of their knowledge and handle issues critically in an ethical manner in efforts to promote health care. The nursing profession requires nurses to exhibit high levels of professionalism to come up with integrated solutions to critical conditions. The general code of ethics revolves around the well-being of the patients, protecting their rights as well as protecting the nurses’ integrity and welfare.
According to O’ Neil (2016), the implications of Baccalaureate essentials it to identify and implement the success measures in obtaining the best outcomes from a program. Baccalaureate education is a professional framework for an institution used during nursing curriculum programs, and its essentials provide the basis for high-quality education for the nurses and accreditation of nursing bodies and state boards of nursing. The Baccalaureate essentials also provide the morals of treating others with sympathy and concern for the well-being of others. The advocacy for quality assurance for the welfare of human desire is therefore achieved through professional competence obtained from Baccalaureate education for professionals. Besides, the essentials of the nursing policy provide the students with sensitive information of waking from the comfort zone for the benefit of others.
In examining the Public Health Nursing, Barbara Zittel et al. (2016) argue that all the professional registered nurses are accountable for their work in the execution of their professional roles. The registered nurses, therefore, are expected to perform duties to the maximum expectations of their expert knowledge. In critical conditions, licensed nurses are taken through educational progressions that provide the nurses with a bachelor’s degree for the nursing field. However, the students pursuing the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree have been encountered with impediments that hinder them from carrying out a full practice of experience. The American Nurses Association (2015) expects registered nurses to seek knowledge and competence from the education panels to be accredited with professional permission to conduct health care. Therefore, the students graduating with the associates BSN, baccalaureate or master’s degree should have the same license for operating as a registered nurse (Zittel, 2015).
Professional Nursing Practice is an essential element which aims at benefiting both the nurse and the patients. Professional nurses apply the baccalaureate essentials to deliver high-quality health care to the patients (Finnell & Thomas 2015). Through authority, the nurses are aware of the use of knowledge and nursing skills to judge conditions to provide quality care to the patients. Nurses use the autonomic experiences to implement safe health care to the patients, without personal attachments in the whole process. As much as the professional nurses are accountable for their activities on the patients, the expectations of the health sector require the nurses to use their credibility in ensuring that the well-being of the patients is catered. Health units allow the patients to stay in the hospital facilities while receiving health care and prevented from developing further complications.
As described by Beth Houlahan, the chief nurse executive, the confluence of nursing is a practice that aims at taking care of the complete person rather than treating a part of a diagnosis (Zittel, Moses, O’Sullivan, Siek, 2016).. Nurses are therefore the patients’ advocates who stand for the requirements of the patients by offering compassion and reconnecting the patients to their families. Nursing is however surrounded by assumptions which help to identify the theories surrounding nursing (Miller 2017). In as much as the nurses are believed to be fully experienced in saving lives, some significant errors may occur in discerning a disease for treatment.
. The American Nurses Association (2019) describes scope and standards of practice in nursing as a guideline that guide and informs the nursing agency about the expectations in the professional operations. All the registered nurses should have the scope to help them know about the ethical standards and for accreditation proof. The scope provides for an improvement to the initiatives, offering credentials and providing regulatory decision making as well as programs that relate to the well-being of the people in the community. The assumptions involved in the treatment of an ailment may be as a result of food diet and the dietary records. Therefore, nurses have only the duty to assist the patients in regaining from their conditions, according to their best knowledge
Nursing, therefore, is a very technical profession which involves “risking life to save a life.” The nurses work under critical conditions, where some nurses resign from operation due to poor working conditions. The code of ethics is initiated to protect the nurses as well as protecting the patients’ welfare while undertaking medical attention. Through obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, the Baccalaureate essentials prove that someone is qualified to conduct nursing operations accordingly (Whitehead et al. 2015). Referring to the analysis of the study, ethics of nursing, therefore, aim at providing security for both the nurses and the patients. The nurses are expected to handle their patients with care, bearing in mind that the primary role is to protect the well-being of the patients but not practically the selected illness.
References
American Nurses Association (2019). “Code of Ethics for Nurses”. ANA
American Nurses Association (2015). “Nurses Rank As Most Honest, Ethical Profession For 14 th Straight Year. Silver Spring.
Epstein, B., Turner, M. (2015). “The Nursing Code of Ethics: Its Value, Its History” OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing.
Finnell, D., Thomas, E. (2015). “Best practices for developing specialty nursing scope and standards of practice. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing.
Fowler, M. (2015). “Guide to the Code of Ethics for Nurses: Development, Interpretation and Application (2 nd ed.). Silver Spring, MD: ANA.
Miller, B. (2017). “Nurses in the know: THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF ADVANCE DIRECTIVES.” The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing.
O’Neil M. (2016). “Learning as a Capstone: Teaching Essentials of Baccalaureate Nursing Education.” J Nurs Education.
Whitehead, P.B., et al. (2015). Moral Distress among healthcare professionals: Report of an Institution-wide survey. Journal of Nursing Scholarship.
Zittel, B., Moses, E., O’Sullivan, A. Siek, T. (2016). “Registered Nurses as Professionals: Accountability for Education and Practise” OJIN:
