Ethical Nursing Role

According to Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2013), a nurse has ethical responsibilities that are streamlined by the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses. The incorporation of the patient’s and family’s needs as the primary obligation to delivering optimal care is a standard that a nurse should uphold to. Other characteristics attributed to delivering adequate patient care are executing with compassion, respect, and dignity for the patient and the family. The nurse’s role is to advocate for the well-being of the patient, their safety, and to have the ability to implement their rights (p.10).

According to Cronenwett et al. (2007) patient-centered care can be outlined as delivering care with respecting the patient’s predilections, beliefs, and necessities (p.123).

As part of the Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN), “nurses and nursing faculty hold commitments to patient-centered care” (Cronenwett et al., 2007, p.127).

As we progress through our clinical rotations our focus of care revolves around the patient. One instance that is relevant to providing patient-centered care is one that I recently encountered in my capstone rotation. I am assigned to ICU and a Code 5 was called in the ED. The resource nurse was called to assist and she took me along with her. The patient involved was a young man who was brought in by EMS, he was receiving chest compressions as he was in asystole. I was part of the group rotating to apply compressions while the rest of the team worked on him. It was my first time being involved in delivering care to this extent. I was amazed at the willingness for the staff to involve the family although things were moving at such a fast pace. Patient-centered care was not compromised even through the urgency of the situation. The knowledge aspect, characterized as “understanding of multiple dimensions of patient-centered care” (Cronenwett et al., 2007, p.123) was applied when the family was allowed to be present while we did compressions and they worked on him as this permitted the family to be involved in the plan of care for the patient. In regards to the skills portion, we delivered “care

with sensitivity and respect” (Cronenwett et al., 2007, p.123) as we were sensible to the family’s needs and we respected how they wanted to handle that particular experience and we provided the patient with as much privacy as possible given the circumstances. The family’s values were also taken into consideration and they were allowed and to execute their beliefs and pray for the patient as we continued to work on him. Lastly, the attitudes aspect of patient-centered care is set on the standards of encouraging and supporting the family in their values (Cronenwett et al., 2007, p.123). This area of the competency was met by having the staff and the chaplain encouraging the expression of their beliefs and in communicating their needs to the staff.
The basis of becoming exposed and proficient in the application of QSEN is imperative to the nursing field as this helps “shape students’ professional value system so that quality and safety are bedrock principles” (Armstrong & Barton, 2013, p.86) instilled in their day to day practice. According to Armstrong and Barton (2013), it is important to expose nursing students early on to these concepts and that they continue to be exposed to them throughout their studies to be able to successfully meet the standards of care outlined by the QSEN (p.86).