Law and Ethics in Nursing

In every nurse's career, he or she will face with legal and ethical dilemmas. One of the professional competencies for nursing states that nurses should "integrate knowledge of ethical and legal aspects of health care and professional values into nursing practice". It is important to know what types of dilemmas nurses may face

during their careers and how they have been successfully dealt with in the past. It

is also important for nurses to understand what malpractice is and how they

may protect themselves from a malpractice lawsuit.

LAW VS. ETHICS

It is important to first understand the difference between law and ethics. Ethics examines the values and actions of people. Often times there is no one right course of action when one is faced with an ethical dilemma. On the other hand, laws

are binding rules of conduct. When laws are broken, it is punishable by an

authority figure.

There are four types of situations that pertain to law vs. ethics. The first would be an action that is both legal and ethical. An example of this would be a nurse carrying out appropriate doctor's orders as ordered. A nurse may also be faced with an action that may be ethical but not legal, such as allowing a cancer patient to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. The opposite may arise where an action may be legal but not ethical. Finally, an action may be neither legal or ethical. For example, when a nurse makes a medication error and does not report it.

ETHICAL DUTIES

Nurses

have many ethical duties to their clients. The main ethical duties are: nonmaleficence,

beneficence, fidelity, veracity, and justice.

The duty of nonmaleficence

is the duty to do no harm. The nurse first needs to ask him or herself what

harm is. When a nurse gives an injection she is causing the patient pain but

she is also preventing additional harm such as disease development or prolonged

pain. Therefore, the nurse must ask herself a second question about how much

harm should be tolerated.

The duty of beneficence is to do good. In a sense,

it is at the opposite end of nonmaleficence or at the positive end of the nonmaleficence > beneficence continuum.

The duty of fidelity means to be faithful, or to

keep to your promises. Therefore, if a nurse tells his patient that he will