Tenets Essay

Reviewing Appendix B in Butts, choose two of the Nine Tenets of the Code of Ethics for Nurses and describe how you will personally apply each tenet in the practice setting with your patients. Describe in detail the purpose of the tenet and provide examples of the tenet applied in practice. Explain why it is important to uphold the tenet in maximizing the quality of patient care, and identify how it enhances your own practice as a nurse.

Your paper should be 1-2 pages.

Include a title page and a reference page to cite your text. Adhere to APA formatting throughout, and cite any outside sources you may use.

I choose:

1. The Environment and Ethical Obligation

Virtues focus on what is good and bad in regard to whom we are to be as moral persons; obligations focus on what is right and wrong or what we are to do as moral agents. Obligations are often specified in terms of principles such as beneficence or doing good; nonmaleficence or doing no harm; justice or treating people fairly; reparations, or making amends for harm; fidelity, and respect for persons. Nurses, in all roles, must create a culture of excellence and maintain practice environments that support nurses and others in the fulfillment of their ethical obligations.

Environmental factors contribute to working conditions and include but are not limited to: clear policies and procedures that set out professional ethical expectations for nurses; uniform knowledge of the Code and associated ethical position statements. Peer pressure can also shape moral expectations within a work group. Many factors contribute to a practice environment that can either present barriers or foster ethical practice and professional fulfillment. These include compensation systems, disciplinary procedures, ethics committees and consulting services, grievance mechanisms that prevent reprisal, health and safety initiatives, organizational processes and structures, performance standards, policies addressing discrimination and incivility position descriptions, and more. Environments constructed for the equitable, fair, and just treatment of all reflect the values of the profession and nurture excellent nursing practice. Tenets Essay

2.

9.2 Integrity of the Profession

The values and ethics of the profession should be affirmed in all professional and organizational relationships whether local, inter-organizational, or international. Nursing must continually emphasize the values of respect, fairness, and caring within the national and global nursing communities in order to promote health in all sectors of the population. A fundamental responsibility is to promote awareness of and adherence to the codes of ethics for nurses (the American Nurses Association and the International Council of Nurses and others). Balanced policies and practices regarding access to nursing education, workforce sustainability, and nurse migration and utilization are requisite to achieving these ends. Together, nurses must bring about the improvement of all facets of nursing, fostering and assisting in the education of professional nurses in developing regions across the globe.

The nursing profession engages in ongoing formal and informal dialogue with society. The covenant between the profession and society is made explicit through the Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements, foundational documents, and other published standards of nursing specialty practice; continued development and dissemination of nursing scholarship; rigorous educational requirements for entry into practice, advanced practice, and continued practice including certification and licensure; and commitment to evidence informed practice.Tenets Essay

Reference

Butts, J. B. (2016). Nursing Ethics, 4th Edition. [Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from https://vsaccess.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284099096/

The Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (the Code) establishes the ethical standard for the profession and provides a guide for nurses to use in ethical analysis and decision-making. The Code is nonnegotiable in any setting. It may be revised or amended only by formal processes established by the American Nurses Association (ANA). The Code arises from the long, distinguished, and enduring moral tradition of modem nursing in the United States. It is foundational to nursing theory, practice, and praxis in its expression of the values, virtues, and obligations that shape, guide, and inform nursing as a profession. Nursing encompasses the protection, promotion, and restoration of health and well-being; the prevention of illness and injury; and the alleviation of suffering, in the care of individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations. All of this is reflected, in part, in nursing’s persisting commitment both to the welfare of the sick, injured, and vulnerable in society and to social justice. Nurses act to change those aspects of social structures that detract from health and well-being. Individuals who become nurses, as well as the professional organizations that represent them, are expected not only to adhere to the values, moral norms, and ideals or the profession but also to embrace them as a part of what it means to be a nurse. The ethical tradition of nursing is self-reflective, enduring, and distinctive. A code of ethics for the nursing profession makes explicit the primary obligations, values, and ideals of the profession. In fact, it informs every aspect of the nurse’s life. The Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements serves the following purposes:

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•  It is a succinct statement of the ethical values, obligations, duties, and professional ideals of nurses individually and collectively. Source: American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Silver Spring, MD: Author. •  It is the profession’s non-negotiable ethical standard. •  It is an expression of nursing’s own understanding of its commitment to society. Statements that describe activities and attributes of nurses in this code of ethics and its interpretive statements are to be understood as normative or prescriptive statements expressing expectations of ethical behavior. Tenets Essay The Code also expresses the ethical ideals of the nursing profession and is, thus, both normative and aspirational. Although this Code articulates the ethical obligations of all nurses, it does not predetermine how those obligations must be met. In some instances nurses meet those obligations individually; in other instances a nurse will support other nurses in their execution of those obligations; at other times those obligations can only and will only be met collectively. ANA’s Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements addresses individual as well as collective nursing intentions and actions; it requires each nurse to demonstrate ethical competence in professional life. Society recognizes that nurses serve those seeking health as well as those responding to illness. Nurses educate students, staff, and others in healthcare facilities. They also educate within communities, organizations, and broader populations. The term practice refers to the actions of the nurse in any role or setting, whether paid or as a volunteer, including direct care provider, advanced practice registered nurse, care coordinator, educator, administrator, researcher, policy developer, or other forms of nursing practice. Thus, the values and obligations expressed in this edition of the Code apply to nurses in all roles, in all forms of practice, and in all settings. ANA’s Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements is a dynamic document. As nursing and its social context change, the Code must also change. The Code consists of two components: the provisions and the accompanying interpretive statements. The provisions themselves are broad and noncontextual statements of the obligations of nurses. The interpretive statements provide additional, more specific, guidance in the application of this obligation to current nursing practice. Consequently, the interpretive statements are subject to more frequent revision than are the provisions—approximately every decade—while the provisions may endure for much longer without substantive revision. Additional ethical guidance and details can be found in the position and policy statements of the ANA or its constituent member associations and affiliate organizations that address clinical, research, administrative, educational, public policy, or global and environmental health issues. The origins of the Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements reach back to the late 1800s in the foundation of ANA, the early ethics literature of modem nursing, and the first nursing code of ethics, which was formally adopted by ANA in 1950. In the 65 years since the adoption of that first professional ethics code, nursing has developed as its art, science, and practice have evolved, as society itself has changed, and as awareness of the nature and determinants of global health has grown. The Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements is a reflection of the proud ethical heritage of nursing and a guide for all nurses now and into the future. Introduction In any work that serves the whole of the profession, choices of terminology must be made that are intelligible to the whole community, are as inclusive as possible, and yet remain as concise as possible. For the profession of nursing, the first such choice is the term patient versus client. The term patient has ancient roots in suffering; for millennia the term has also connoted one who undergoes medical treatment. Yet, not all who are recipients of nursing care are either suffering or receiving medical treatment The root of client implies one who listens, leans upon, or follows another. It connotes a more advisory relationship, often associated with consultation or business. Thus, nursing serves both patients and clients. Tenets Essay Additionally, the patients and clients can be individuals, families, communities, or populations. Recently, following a consumerist movement in the United States, some have preferred consumer to either patient or client. In this revision of the American Nurses Association’s (ANA’s) Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (the Code), as in the past revision, ANA decided to retain the more common, recognized, and historic term patient as representative of the category of all who are recipients of nursing care. Thus, the term patient refers to clients or consumers of health care as well as to individuals or groups. A decision was also made about the words ethical and moral. Both are neutral and categorical. That is—similar to physical, financial, or historical—they refer to a category, a type of reflection, or a behavior. They do not connote a rightness or goodness of that behavior. Within the field of ethics, a technical distinction is made between ethics and morality. Morality is used to refer to what would be called personal values, character, or conduct of individuals or groups within communities and societies. Ethics refers to the formal study of that morality from a wide range of perspectives including semantic, logical, analytic, epistemological, and normative. Thus, ethics is a branch of philosophy or theology in which one reflects on morality. For this reason, the study of ethics is often called moral philosophy or moral theology. Fundamentally, ethics is a theoretical and reflective domain of human knowledge that addresses issues and questions about morality in human choices, actions, character, and ends. As a field of study, ethics is often divided into metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics is the domain that studies the nature of ethics and moral reasoning. It would ask questions such as “Is there always an element of self-interest in moral behavior?”and “Why be good?” Normative ethics addresses the questions of the ought, the four fundamental terms of which are right and wrong, good and evil. That is, normative ethics addresses what is right and wrong in human action (what we ought to do); what is good and evil in human character (what we ought to be); and good or evil in the ends that we ought to seek. Applied ethics wrestles with questions of right, wrong, good, and evil in a specific realm of human action, such as nursing, business, or law. It would ask questions such as “Is it ever morally right to deceive a research subject?”or “What is a ‘good nurse’ in a moral sense?” or “Are health, dignity, and well-being intrinsic or instrumental ends that nursing seeks?”All of these aspects of ethics are found in the nursing literature Tenets Essay