Nursing Ethics
What are the spiritual and cultural values that come into play for me as a nurse, when I'm on the job and caring for a patient or giving an otherwise healthy patient a physical checkup? Ethics and moral values play a huge part in the healthcare field, especially with a nurse, who is often providing patient-centric, one-on-one care in a hospital or clinical setting. A nurse must set the bar high when it comes to integrity, ethics, morals, and respect for all people, to include other cultures. This is the mantra I try to follow not just on the floor as a nurse but in my personal life with my family and friends; after all, a nurse could not be a cold, heartless, indifferent person in private life and suddenly be an ethical, caring, moral professional on the job. This paper uses scholarly research to accurately portray the ethical and moral values a nurse must have to be effective, and to a large extent, those ethical and moral values reflect my own beliefs and practices.
Human Love -- A Necessary Ingredient in Nursing
In the Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences the authors reference a textbook on nursing that was written in 1911 by Swedish nurse Estrid Rodhe, which stands even today as a valuable book because it speaks to the altruism and unselfishness nursing should represent. It echoes my own beliefs and values because in Rodhe's book the author highlights nursing knowledge, the ethical requirements that go into being a nurse, and as the authors note, "Understanding the past helps us comprehend current issues in nursing" (Kangasniemi, et al., 2012). I have deep respect for Rodhe for coming up with a textbook that went beyond the job-related and healthcare-related issue and went right to the heart of nursing -- the ethical values that must be practiced in order to provide the greatest possible care for patients.
This remarkable book was unique for several reasons, but overall the authors of this article point out that there were very few textbooks on nursing that zeroed in on the ethical values that should be part of nursing. The title of the book was About Nursing Ethics, and it was in fact the "very first textbook in Finland that focuses on nursing ethics" (Kangasniemi, 803). Moreover, it was the first textbook actually written by a nurse, and the next textbook that referenced nursing ethics wasn't published for another 70 years. And though several nursing textbooks came out between the time Rodhe's book was published and seventy years later (when the next nursing book dealing with ethics written by a nurse), they were written by "physicians, theologians or educators" (Kangasniemi, 803).
The authors remind readers that a theoretical premise for one particular profession is never "independent of the current period and context," and in fact the theoretical premise for any field is "under constant change" (Kangasniemi, 804). That certainly includes the nursing profession -- and the society to which nurses serve -- and I have seen the changes in the nursing industry in the time I have worked as a nurse. And yet, looking at the changing, evolving landscape for nurses in my generation and the technological innovations and continuing high cost of healthcare, I can see that no matter those changes, there will always be a need for an ethical approach to healthcare.
I believe I have an obligation and a moral commitment to live up to the highest standards in the healthcare industry. When I look at the way in which nurses were treated in the years that Rodhe worked in the field -- and the difficult conditions under which nurses were obliged to work -- I am very grateful to be living and working in this era. Yes there are challenges, and sometimes the workload seems outrageous in terms of the overtime and the shortage of qualified nurses available, but I am indeed grateful to be living in the 21st century and to be paid a fair wage based on my talent, my level of experience and knowledge.
Credit should always be given to Florence Nightingale for her path-finding emphasis on nursing values in the late 19th century, but a great deal of credit should also be given to Roche. In the years that Rodhe worked, nurses were "subordinated to physicians"; their pay was very low, their working hours were brutally long, and there was a "scarcity…of educated nurses and care materials" (Kangasniemi, 804). When I think...
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