Informed Consent In Nursing

The dental hygiene process of care is an organized framework that aims to provide dental hygienist with the tools to provide quality and individualized oral hygiene care that meets the client's needs. This model is composed of six key steps, assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, evaluation and documentation.

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).

Henrietta Lack was an African American woman born in 1920 who helped science define some of the world’s medical discoveries. Many woman were dying every year from cervical cancer. Little did she know what the future held for her and millions of other people. This situation saddens me as a medical professional because a human was treated as a specimen rather than a person. Even though this was many decades ago, I feel as though there still should have been standard practices in place that prevented this kind of behavior from those who are supposed to be trusted most, health care professionals. The article we had to read in a previous assignment is a wonderful account of Henrietta Lacks life and the impact she made on the world today. It

In the study “Assessing the quality of informed consent in a resource-limited setting: A cross-sectional study,” researchers investigated the process of obtaining informed consent in clinical and public health research. The method of the study utilized interviews, in which research participants were asked a series of questions after they had been through informed consent procedures. 600 participants were interviewed, and the results show that 5.9% believed that they were not given enough information before deciding to participate. Only 5.7% of the participants said that they had not signed a consent form before making the decision to participate. Interestingly, 33.7% reported that they were not aware of their power to withdraw from participation

Physician-assisted death is the practice in which a physician provides a mentally competent patient with the means to take his/her own life, usually in the form of prescribing death-dealing medications. It first became legal in the United States in Oregon in 1998. It is now legal in four other states: Washington, California, Montana, and Vermont. In order for one to exercise their right to die this way, the law states that the patient must be at least 18 years old, be mentally competent, be diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months, and must wait at least fifteen days before filling the death-dealing prescriptions. This controversial practice has raised the question of whether or not it is ethical for a physician

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” details the injustice and hardships that an African American woman endured when skin color determined the value of a person/during a time dominated by racial segregation/when racial segregation was the law of the land. Born in Roanoke, Virginia, on August 1, 1920, Henrietta Lacks was forced to follow to racial segregation laws that prohibited Blacks from interacting with Whites in such public places as bathrooms, seating areas, colleges, and hospitals. Like all African Americans, she was treated as an inferior member of society due to her skin color. At the age of thirty, Mrs. Lacks had developed cervical cancer and went to Johns Hopkins Hospital, which only treated Blacks at the time.

Informed consent tends to spark major ethical controversy in the medical world. Many people believe that ALL humans deserve the right to know what research or tests are being done within their body, as well as the understanding of all the risks and costs that are associated with treatment. Other people believe that the right of informed consent should vary from person to person. This disputable topic is also explored throughout the novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. As the story progresses, the reader soon discovers that without the lack of informed consent given to Henrietta Lacks, the discovery of the famous immortal HeLa cells would have never occurred. Informed consent for every single patient is not ideal because

The professional values that I have chosen to reflect on is consent. Using Driscoll (2007) model of reflection which is components circle involves three events: what? So what? Now what? A reflection account will focus on my experience of working in the surgical ward. Confidentiality will be maintained as the British Medical Association (BMA,2016) states that “All identifiable patient information, whether written, computerised, visually or audio recorded or simply held in the memory of health professionals, is subject to the duty of confidentiality”, hence pseudonym will be used and the patient will be referred to as Mr Eric.

Consent can be legal, ethical or professional, (Wheeler 2013), and is more than a simple signature on a form, it forms the process of good communication between patient and professional providing the treatment (Dimond 2015). In order to ensure that patient are aware of the care that will be given, the patient is informed and consent gained before or during care delivery Mental capacity Act (2015) additionally, obtaining consent encompass in the legal and ethical framework, hence this must be sort and healthcare professional must assess if the patient has capacity to consent to care Mental Capacity Act (2015). However Mary has the capacity to give consent for her care as she demonstrate her understanding of what will be done and why it is done

Informed consent gives a competent patient the freewill to make his decisions about his health after getting informed adequately about the procedure, its alternatives, pros &cons and uncertainties related the procedure and its alternatives. Above all the patient’s consent must be voluntary and without any kind of pressure whatsoever. There are few fundamental question

Informed consent may be defined as the process whereby a patient has the right to reject or accept therapy after being provided with information about the benefits and risks of that therapy. In more direct terms, informed consent is formulated on the legal and moral grounds of patient autonomy. In most, if not all, countries, all adult and mentally-competent patients have the right to make autonomous decisions concerning their medical and health conditions. This right is reserved so long as the patient has the ability or capacity to voluntarily make and comprehend the decision in the presence of full disclosure with regards to the therapy in question.

Nurses are a group of professionals who faces a variety of ethical dilemmas while working. Therefore, these dilemmas cannot only impact on their personalities but also affect their patients. However, ethical dilemmas are argumentative and difficult to deal with, so there is no “right” or “wrong” answer for them.

Confidentiality is an ethical value that remains deeply rooted in the nursing profession and has always been the cornerstone of the nurse-patient relationship. Since the days as nursing students, we were constantly reminded of the significance in maintaining patient’s confidentiality.

Promoting patient’s autonomy is showing a sense of respect the patients. This can be violated very easy, it is the nurse responsibility to provide some sort of safety to prevent this from occurring. By educating the patients is recommended in all healthcare environment. When these patients understand that they have right to their medical information, and also they have right to make any decision, they will be able to advocate themselves and prevent it. Educating the patient as a preventive measure that will also prevent any ethical dilemma advanced practice nurses’ moral distress. As a result, this can be done by explain to the patient all the legal aspect while they are in the hospital

As a nurse we are supposed to have compassion and build a rapport with our patients but we must uphold our ethical principles when it comes to this dilemma. As for analyzing this situation and coming to a decision I would use the nursing process since it provides a helpful mechanism for finding solutions to ethical dilemmas. (Whitehead 2007). I would assess the situation and ask myself about the medical facts, psychosocial facts as well as cultural beliefs, patients’ wishes and what values are in conflict. I would then move on to planning and make sure that everyone is involved during this stage and continue on down the line with the nursing process. It seems like The