Case Study: Honoring Dignity In Relation To Ethical Practice

Honouring Dignity in Relation to Ethical Practice

Honouring dignity is a basic right for all individuals and it is fundamental in caring for the holistic wellbeing of patients (Mohsen & Mohammad, 2015). Nurses can preserve the dignity of patients when they establish trust, assure respect, and communicate these values to the patients. It is on this basis of ethical values of which nurses withhold that grants them the opportunity to display professionalism. Nurses strive to help enhance the holistic wellbeing of individuals and in order for such a goal to be feasible, there must be a baseline to ensure that all nurses participate in ethical nursing care. The Canadian Nurses Association set a foundation for nurses to guide the ethical performance.

The ethical scenario used throughout the paper is of how two nurses at a hospital in Florida posted a video and a picture of them inappropriately handling an hour old newborn on social media, Snapchat (Clark, 2017). In the picture, the nurse was inappropriately gesturing to the newborn and calling the infant satan. The nurse in the video was lifting the new born and moving the infant’s arms and legs to dance to rap music. The post was reported and eventually spread on Facebook. The purpose of this paper is to identify the unethical practices from the case study according to the standard of honouring dignity shown in the CNA Code of Ethics. To honour dignity, nurses strive to respect the patients and family, protect the privacy, advocate for patient rights and

Patients build their trust on the grounds of such regulations and expect to receive care with respect for themselves, their family, and their privacy. The CNA code of ethics guides nurses to respect the patients and family, protect privacy, advocate for patients receiving poor treatment and maintain professionalism in the therapeutic relationship (CNA, 2017). The case study discussed in the paper identified examples of unethical practices and the paper addressed different methods to deal with the ethical dilemma. In the scenario, the two nurses failed to show respect in any aspect which leads to the violation of responsibilities under the value of honouring dignity. Nurses can build therapeutic relationships and create the ideal environment for care if they follow the ethical standards and policies regarding their practice; however, the neglect of such guidelines can break the channel of which the care is carried out and result in the patient’s unwillingness to receive the care that they need. Dignity can be preserved by basic moral responses such as respect but can also be shattered(diminished) by a simple act of