As a professional nurse, it is vital to uphold the nine ethical rules for the best practice. To ensure this is so, it is crucial to treat every patient with love, respect, and dignity. It does not matter what class the patient comes from; they all deserve equality in treatment. It is also crucial to focus all attention on the treatment and wellbeing of the patient as the primary client. The primary commitment is to the patient (ANA Code of Ethics, 2014). To promote the health and safety of the patient, the nurse should ensure that the patient’s caregivers are enlightened about their role in the treatment of the patient. In the clinical setting, this can be applied through briefing the patient’s family on the patient’s medication, as well as any diet change to ensure they recuperate well. Also, the nurse has the responsibility of ensuring the patient takes their medication on time and does a follow up for clinic checkups and doctor’s appointments.
This impacts a nurse when caring for an elderly patient since the patient in question may not be in the best physical and mental state to remember all the instructions. In this case, it is the nurse’s duty to check on the patient regularly. This is to ensure they take their medication on time, and that their diet is at par with the doctor’s instructions (Winland-Brown, Lachman, & Swanson, 2015). The nurse may also be obliged to conduct private nursing, at the request of the patient, to help with their recovery process. As a geriatric nurse, there are a lot of risks one is exposed to since the profession requires more attention and contact with the patient. To protect oneself against contracting communicable diseases as part of the self-care, it is essential to wear protective clothing. The use of nose masks and gloves is a classic example of self-care protective gears that a nurse should use, in addition to frequent vaccinations against common communicable diseases.
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References
ANA Code of Ethics. (2014). NYS Nursing: Practice Information: Ethical Practice . Retrieved from http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/nurse/nurseethicalpractice.htm
Winland-Brown, J., Lachman, V. D., & Swanson, E. O. C. (2015). The new'Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements'(2015): Practical clinical application, Part I. Medsurg Nursing , 24 (4), 268.
