NURS 3004 Assignment: Transition To Professional Practice

Question:

This assignment will discuss ethical dilemma faced by me as a student nurse while I was on placement in Acute medical ward of a public hospital. As per code of conduct guidelines students are expected to work under direct supervision of registered nurse (RN)

Assignment 3 Reflection on practice and learning

You are going to reflect back on an ethical dilemma you have encountered in your student placement/ previous experience. (This can be as simple as to the type of medication you should give). You will write a scenario explaining the ethical dilemma (do not use names of hospitals or individuals).
Then you will identify sections from the ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses (2012) in resolving this dilemma—identifying which provisions are most relevant to your scenario.
Then using each step of the MORAL MODEL, describe how you worked through the ethical dilemma. How did you resolve it? Include relevant ethical principles when you address resolving the dilemma.

Sample Draft Solution:

Ethical Dilemma Scenario

During my placement as a student nurse last holiday in an acute medical ward of a public hospital, I faced several nursing ethical dilemmas. The most outstanding one happened when my relationship with the core workers of the institution was put to test. The nursing dilemma that I found myself in touched on issues concerning the role of the nurse in safeguarding the safety of patients when their health is put at risk by the actions of co-workers. According to the code of conduct guidelines, student nurses work under registered nurse (RN) direct supervision. I was therefore supposed to work under the instructions of a senior RN in the first week of my placement. The ward’s superintendent tasked the RN and me to care for patients in the infectious rooms.

When we started working, I was shocked to see that she entered patients’ rooms that require contact isolation precautions without putting on personal protective equipment (PPE). Moreover, she extensively neglected appropriate hand hygiene precautions several times between patients. At one point in time, she gave me a Panadol to deliver to a patient and upon asking her to accompany me she dismissed me by stating “Oh, it’s just a Panadol and I have checked it. I have to finish my nursing notes”.

Solving the Ethical Scenario Dilemma: MORAL MODEL

To resolve this nursing ethical dilemma, I used the MORAL model which is basically a 5 step ethical decision making model premised on the acronym MORAL: M- massage the dilemma, O- outline the options, R- review criteria and resolve the dilemma, A- affirm position and act, and L- look back and evaluate the entire process as described by Ghazal, Saleem, and Amlani (2014, p.136).

Massage the Dilemma

Since I was still a nurse student and I was yet to be familiar with my fellow co-workers especially with their personal behaviors and traits, this situation literally put me in an ethical dilemma. I was torn between abiding by the codes of ethics guiding the conduct of nurses pertaining the safeguarding of patients’ safety when their health is at risk out of the actions of co-workers or compromising them to ensure my safe stay at the acute medical ward. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, (2018) and the International Council of Nurses (2012) assert that nurses have a responsibility of forging and sustaining a collaborative and respectful relationship with all co-workers in the nursing profession. Moreover, nurses are expected to safeguard patients’ health and safety especially when co-workers endanger the same.

Outline Options

Option 1- Do nothing by keeping the observation of the malpractice to myself. This was meant to secure my safe stay and effective completion of my nursing placement at the hospital. This was prompted by the fact that, I didn’t know the possible reactions of the nurse and the hospital management against me. In any case, it was upon the hospital’s management to enforce the safety standards of patients.

Option 2- Confront the nurse and make it clear to her that she is contravening critical patient safety practices that may jeopardize their health outcomes.