Advanced Practice Leadership Theory

The study of ethics, moral conduct and decision making regarding ethical issues in nursing is a vital component of nursing education. Nurses may be confronted almost on a daily basis with the need to make nursing decisions when there is no right or wrong answer. Nurses will at times feel caught in the middle (Pavlish et. al, 2011). This dilemma demonstrates how easily ones nursing practice can be significantly altered. This dilemma also exemplifies how one complex dilemma in patient care, can impact on legal, ethical and professional issues for nurses. These issues interface with each other in substantial ways. Nurses must be prepared for these inevitable challenging situations (Tang, 2011).

Worldwide today there are about 14 million nurses of which in 2015 136854 were found to be in South Africa, who serve as the core of the health care system (Morteza, et al., 2012) (Anon., 2015). Over the years nursing has evolved, with the professional identity of nurses changing from merely being seen as doctor’s assistants to being important members of the health care team. Professional identity is described as a career or occupational identity which is a component of an individual’s overall identity (Johnson, et al., 2012). It is said to be “ a sense of self that is derived and perceived from the role we take on in work that we do” which is amplified by one’s societal standing, how you interact with others and interpretations of one’s experiences (Johnson, et

In the following paragraphs, the grand theory of Jean Watson will be explored for its usefulness in practice. We will explore how the theory is congruent with current nursing standards and nursing interventions. Next, we will study if her theory has been tested empirically, if it is supported by research and if it is accurate. We will explore if there is evidence that her theory has been used by nursing educators, researchers, and nursing administrators. Then we will study how her theory is relevant socially and cross-culturally. Finally, we will explore if her theory contributes to the discipline of nursing and a summary will be presented of this review.

In this case study the primary nurse, Amelia Wilkerson, is caring for a patient, Katy Palmer who has recently been admitted to the hospital for fatigue and abnormal lab counts. The patient asks Amelia for information regarding her diagnosis. Amelia has seen Katy’s results and knows that she has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. The ethical dilemma seen in this situation is that it is outside of the scope of practice for Amelia to discuss Katy’s original diagnosis with her. This is reserved for the doctor alone. However, as a nurse that has developed a relationship with her patient it would be very difficult to not answer her question honestly. In addition, the patient might feel more comforted hearing the diagnosis from her nurse rather than the doctor as the nurse has been caring for her and they have developed a therapeutic relationship.

From these realizations I have concluded that the professional nursing theories which most align with my own philosophy is a combination of Jean Watson’s theory of human caring and Rosemarie Parse’s theory of human becoming.

Role of Graduate Nurse in Informatics are: 1) computer generated nursing care plan for each patient. 2) reminder and prompts that appear during documentation to ensure comprehensive charting. 3) help as a communication aid to other health care professionals taking care of the same patient. For example, Electronic Health Record.

Empirical referent studies support Watson’s theory by affirming the existence of a positive relationship between patient satisfaction and nurse caring behaviors in numerous clinical settings. Nursing education plays a significant role in the achievement the caring concept and is accentuated throughout the nurse's professional career (Labrague, Mcenroe-Petitte, Papathanasiou, Edet, & Arulappan, 2015). Patient satisfaction is a measurable component used to determine the care received from nurse clinicians. Stroehlein (2016) indicates that although there is a large constituent of many occupations, caring in the nursing occupation assumes an exceptional meaning with a higher purpose. Caring is multifaceted and comparable have determined individuals whose intention is to open the eyes of the society through rendering high quality patient care (Stroehlein, 2016).

The career of nursing is more than just healing the sick. Nursing often causes nurses to face moral and ethical dilemmas. “Ethics refers to principles of right and wrong behaviors, beliefs, and values (Zerwekh & Garneau, 2015, p. 420).” When new graduate nurses begin their careers the first twelve months are a great time to gain a better understanding of personal beliefs and how they can affect patient care. Nursing is a highly respected profession and patients will seek advice from nurses. Therefore, nurses should learn how to react to situations that may not align completely with their own personal moral or ethical beliefs.

What does nursing mean to me? Nursing means helping people heal, meeting their needs while they are in your care, listening to concerns, protecting them from harm, and educating them how to care for themselves while treating them with dignity, compassion and respect and giving of yourself to the care of people and community. It is having compassion for people and their health and being a humanitarian, making sure they receive the best care possible. Nurses must also treat families of patients with kindness, realizing they are going through a stressful situation also.

Utilitarianism and Deontology are two major ethical theories that influence nursing practice. Utilitarian principles of promoting the greatest good for the greatest amount of people parallels the nursing tenet of beneficence. Deontological principles of treating individuals with dignity, and promoting the well-being of the individual parallels the nursing tenet of non-maleficence. Utilitarian and Deontological principles can be utilized to resolve ethical dilemmas that arise in the nursing profession. The purpose of this paper is to define utilitarianism and deontology, discuss the similarities and differences between the two, and to address an ethical dilemma utilizing utilitarian and deontological principles.

What does nursing mean to me? Nursing means helping people heal, meeting their needs while they are in your care, listening to concerns, protecting them from harm, and educating them how to care for themselves while treating them with dignity, compassion and respect. Nursing is giving of yourself to the care of people and community, while expecting nothing in return. It is having compassion for people and their health, being a humanitarian, and making sure patients receive the best care possible. Nurses must also deal with families of patients with gentleness and kindness, realizing they are going through a stressful situation also.

Moral integrity is the key ingredients and navigator in professional nurses that lead to ultimate goal of nursing care. It has been recognized as a fundamental part of professional nurses’ practice (Ulrich et al, 2010; Pavlish et al, 2012). Professional nurses play the largest role to support the need for individualized treatment of the patient. The goals of the profession of nursing are related to ethical and involve protecting patients from harm while providing care that is the most benefit for the patient (Bosek, 2009; Kopala&Burkhart, 2005; Helft, 2011; Susan, 2013,). Nowadays, professional nurses have encountered to face and manage with moral problem that occur from complexity of patient health problems, advances in technology, inappropriate of health care system, policies and priorities that conflict with care needs, inadequate staffing and increased turnover, or lack of administrative support (Brazil et al. 2010; Eizenberg et al. 2009; Elpern et al. 2005; Epstein, 2008; Gutierrez, 2005; Peter, 2008; Radzvin, 2010; Redman and Fry, 2000; Solomon et al. 2005; Sporrong et al. 2006; Wigglelon et al 2010).

The concept of philosophy of nursing practice is taken from module 1.1 of Medical surgical nursing elective MNET 3, with the title introduction to nursing and sub-titled philosophy, objectives of nursing.

This assignment is a reflection of ethical dilemmas in nursing practice as a registered nurse; this paper is based on the group assignment which was completed for NURS3004. This reflection will include an explanation of the role that I portrayed in the group, the preparation that I did for the role, what could have been done differently, how this group assignment has impacted me in terms of working in a team and finally explain how this assignment will assist me in my future clinical practice as a newly registered nurse.

Nurses should adopt the ethical principle of deontology and promote good, not harm. There is a binding duty for nurses based on morality. Moreover, there is a strong emphasis of the moral importance of cultivating virtuous character traits such as empathy and compassion in nurses. As virtue ethics are inculcated in medical and nursing students, they ought to have an ethic of care, without biasness, when carrying out treatment plan for all patients (Staunton & Chiarella, 2017).