Every day nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas. Challenges in these situations are becoming more and more complex due to increasing workload and sicker patients. When a nursing unit is understaffed not only are nurses more likely to become burnt out, but their patients are far less likely to receive the quality of care they deserve. The problem is that the Federal regulations require hospitals who participate in Medicare to “have ‘adequate’ numbers of licensed nurses (RN, LPN, CNA) to provide care to all patients as needed,” but the regulations
Burnout is classified viewed in three phases. The first phase of burnout is the arousal phase. The nurse shows anxiety, insomnia, forgetfulness, inability to concentrate, feelings of beings overwhelmed, frustration, sadness, and new physical symptoms, such as headaches and stomach problems. If the nurse does not recognize that these symptoms require intervention, the second phase is energy conservation. In this phase, the nurse starts to call in sick to work; o she may be chronically late getting to duty. Deadlines are not met, a cynical or resentful attitude develops, a persistent sense of fatigue pervades both are the nurse’s personal and professional’s life.
Coming from a third world country where there aren’t many opportunities for work and funding for education, proceding to nursing school was a grand opportunity. The privilege to attend a government subsidized school where top students in the region compete to get into the program that allowed only 60 students per year was indeed a blessing. As clinical rotations began, what was once considered a mere opportunity evolved into a true passion for caring as I truly love and enjoy nursing and helping people.
Now I am old enough to know that death is not the end, but it is the beginning of a new life. We have to submit our lives to God and ask him for the strength to move forward. Worldview about life after death will largely determine how the patient and families welcome death. Now, as a Christian nurse, I can see death in the light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (GCU, 2015). If I can help the family members to go through this traumatic experience and the grieving process, my Christian calling as nurse will be
Palliative care continues to evolve in providing better end-of-life care and so does nursing care. Thus, nursing practice is enhanced to satisfy the demand of the palliative care. A nurse provides complex care and fulfils the needs of the patients. Nursing involves in caring work, which focus on patient experiencing agony in palliative and haematological cancer care. Nurses worked in a taxing environment, that can be highly stressful, and often they experience physical, psychological and spiritual exhaustion. This nature of work can have devastating effects on the health and wellbeing of a nurse. There are three concepts related to adverse consequences of caring work: these are compassion fatigue, burnout and vicarious traumatization.
Nurses lack of education, training, and lack of comfort in providing care was also seen as another barrier to good end of life care. Lack of knowing the patience preference or wishes regarding their care and treatment also created another obstacle for end life care. To make changes to these factors one of which that was made was the effective opening of communication, both with their team and with the patience family. Related to this is the use of a family care model and family involvement in clinical decision making. Nurses ability to act on previous experiences and their ability to support one another was also recognized as a positive factor to providing quality end of life care. Although the practice of providing end-of-life care in the ICU setting is becoming more prevalent, new ICU nurses or units that do not frequently engage in end-of-life care involving the withdrawal of life-sustaining therapies may benefit from additional resources to guide them through the
There is a correlation between health care members providing information in a timely manner to patients who need to make decisions about their care and treatment and the quality of care patients receive. Lack of care resulted from physicians being reluctant to refer patients to palliative care. Due to a lack of honest open discussions regarding diagnosis, prognosis and treatment options patient’s suffering was prolonged. Since palliative care focuses on improving symptoms, dignity and quality-of-life it is important that sufficient attention is placed on the complex needs of individuals. The delivery of palliative care has become challenging for nurses. Nurses ought to use a holistic approach to explore any problems that reduce patient’s quality of
In the past, I’ve had several volunteer opportunities to work with doctors, nurses, and pharmacists where healthcare was scarce. I was fortunate to go on medical mission trips to developing countries and these trips were major factors that had me seek a career in the healthcare field. As a Nurse Practitioner, I would like to continue to pursuit for opportunities to work abroad proving care to those who need them. My ultimate goal as a Family Nurse Practitioner is to provide primary care at multilingual health centers. As a bilingual Registered Nurse, I naturally had an interest in medical translation. I had few opportunities where I shadowed a medical translator and was able to see cares for non-English speaking patients. Through this experience I become aware that often, language barrier can be a major factor when it comes to people seeking healthcare. Even though nowadays most hospitals have free language assistance by phone or by video screen, I noticed that people would rather have someone who they trusted physically present or the provider be the same language speaker as them. When these measures weren’t met, I found that the patients gave up or postponed their healthcare needs which sometimes led to an unfortunate outcome. Personally growing up, I translated for my
Sepsis is a common life threatening condition that unless promptly recognized and treated, can progress to septic shock. In the United States, sepsis is the 10th leading cause of death, and is suspected to have an increased prevalence due to the aging population; an increase in immunocompromised patients; greater use of invasive medical technologies; and greater antimicrobial resistance (Vanzent, 2011). It accounts for a mortality rate of 35%, and 20,000 deaths per day worldwide (Kafle & Nath, 2014). This is substantial because there are few disease processes that are associated with such a high mortality rate. The unregulated inflammatory response leads to intravascular volume loss, cellular hypoxia, and multisystem organ failure.
Sheriff and Van Sell are nursing professors at the Women’s Texas University and Strasen is a nursing director at the University of Texas Southwest. Sheriff, Van Sell and Strasen present research that suggests nurses and physicians are more likely to encourage family presence during resuscitation (FPDR) if there is a written policy addressing specific criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of family during these procedures. The authors provide a framework to use when writing a hospital policy regarding FPDR. The authors identified several common barriers healthcare professionals have about FPDR and found educational programs about the positive outcomes of FPDR could drastically increase the number of physicians and nurses who would encourage
In regards to the family, seeing their loved one be resuscitated may be a traumatic experience. In the event that the family member was to faint during the occurrence nurses would have to divert their attention away from the current patient and also provide care to the family member. This could mean the difference in the patient surviving or not, and therefore would negatively affect the patient. The family member also would be at risk for PTSD in the event that they witnessed their loved one die traumatically. As for the nurse, having the family present increases stress on the nurse which could also affect the patient’s outcome. In the event of a code blue, nurses need to be focused in order to think fast and provide the best care in a timely manner. Imagine how the nurse may not be able to focus in the circumstance where the family was hysterical and
High rates of patient mortality have been the result of miscommunication and have also been traced down by sentinel events by the Joint Commission. Safety issues arise in all areas of healthcare facilities that miscommunication is a preventable factor in the process for patient quality care and can be in fact augmented. Communication is vital at all moments in the duration of nursing duties and is held to be imperative between two shifts (Millar & Sands 2013). The WHO Patient Safety Alliance nominated communication enhancement as top 5 initiative in preventing fatal adverse effects and had later in the years of 2008-2009, funded National Clinical Handover Initiative by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare (Johnson, Jefferies & Nicholls
There’s a mean streak of people in this world today and they prefer them home. So that’s when the Hospice team leaders come in. They are always available 24/7 to treat the mind, body, and spirit. The team includes the caregivers, social workers, nurses, chaplains, and trained volunteers. The hospice care supports the patient’s and their family member, relief the patient’s pain and symptoms and help the family members and their love ones to whom want to stay close to their dying and sometimes long-term care. Patients. (Morrow, Angela, RN Wiley,
Furthermore, it can ensure when the patient is unable to make any medical decision. This is a common agreement between the medical choices and decisions. Through discussion and understanding, pre-determined treatment intent at the time of death and other options for dying care and appoint "caregivers" in the patient In the event of a loss of self-determination, the "caregiver" may represent his wishes and ensure that the will is committed. This will not only enhance the mutual trust and understanding of patients, family members and health care workers. On the other hand, it will also avoid the difficulties and pressures of family members in the face of illness and death, and reduce the chance of making a decision to feel contradictory and guilty. For the sake of respect for their lives and their
In the healthcare industry, nurses are the workers that do a lot to ensure quality patient