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Collaborative Nursing Term Paper

Collaborative Nursing The two SMART goals chosen for this assignment are Ethical Leadership in nursing and Nurse Mentoring. These SMART goals are both vitally important to the nurse in any context, because healthcare situations demand ethical approaches and mentoring is always a valuable component of nursing practice. As to Nurse Mentoring, this is a process that should not be limited to recent graduates of nursing schools but in fact should be conducted throughout a nurse's career as new procedures and technologies are introduced to the field of nurse care.

Ethical Leadership

Ethics is a term that is used often in business and other genres. It is used so often that perhaps in some cases it becomes watered down. But in any healthcare environment the need for wholly ethical practices by nurses -- and all healthcare professionals -- is absolutely vital. This society is weary from news of ethical breakdowns in government and business, so the nursing field must be absolutely committed to providing ethical leadership.

Peer-Reviewed Article: In a scholarly article in the journal Nursing Ethics the authors point out that while ethical leadership is "…critical to enhancing ethical healthcare practice," many nurses do not feel that they have the support of their supervisors and other key leaders (Storch, et al., 2013). The problem is related to the fact that ethical leadership just isn't discussed or evaluated as often as perhaps it should. In this peer-reviewed piece, the authors researched articles on ethical leadership in Nursing Ethics and found that there were only twelve articles specific to ethical leadership over a twenty-year period (Storch, 152). That translates to less than one article on ethical leadership in Nursing Ethics each year since 1996.

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The article on the home page ("Helping nurses make ethical decisions") is by Tesfamicael Ghebrehiwet (RN / PHD at the International Council of Nurses). He points to the fact that nurses "…daily fact ethical dilemmas related to life and death" and hence nurses must fully understand their code of ethics and apply those best practices every hour of every day.
Informational Expert: The person interviewed for this assignment is an RN at maximum-security psychiatric state hospital. Her name is Eileen, and she has worked at this facility for 8 years. Asked about ethical leadership among the nursing staff, she said:

"Ethics is on the minds of every nurse in the building, because we are serving mentally ill inmates, mentally disordered offenders, and some of our patients are here because they were found incompetent to stand trial. Still others have been found not guilty by reason of insanity, so you get a clear picture of who we are dealing with." Has she seen unethical practices? "When a violent patient threatens a staff member or nurse, it is totally ethical to subdue that person without harming him, if possible. And yet, sometimes when a nurse is threatened or actually attacked by an inmate, there is the natural urge to retaliate. Still, we have a code of ethics and when a nurse violates that code there are repercussions from our supervisors."

Do Eileen's superiors teach or demonstrate ethical leadership? "Yes, we have bi-monthly classes on ethical leadership that each nurse is expected to demonstrate. The classes are mandatory and the state brings in expert consultants to instruct and update…

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Cottingham, S., DiBartolo, M.C., Battistoni, S., and Brown, T. (2011). Partners in Nursing: A

Mentoring Initiative to Enhance Nurse Retention. Nursing Education Perspectives, 32(4),

250-255.

Eileen. (2013). "Ethical leadership and mentoring are an important part of nurses in the psychiatric facility where I work."
Ghebrehiwet, T. (2013). Doing what's right: The ethics of nursing / Helping nurses make ethical decisions. Reflections on Nursing Leadership. Retrieved May 31, 2013, from http://www.reflectionsonnursingleaderhip.org.
Retrieved May 31, 2013, from http://www.tmcc.edu/nursing/mentoring.
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