My Moral Compass
Maryann Onwenu
Grand Canyon University
NRV-437V (NRV-437V-O103) Ethical Decision Making in Health Care
July 20, 2014 Professionally, moral compass is what serves as an intrinsic factor living in me every day. It codes or molds my passion, directions, values, virtues and inspirations that I strive for daily. Pity, fidelity, honesty, honor, faithfulness, dedication, willpower or self- containment, accountability and sense of humor all amounts to the monumental and philosophical nature of nursing. Always ensuring to provide the best and same quality of care to all my patients, and their families is my paramount drive in the practice of nursing.
According to American …show more content…
Being a home health nurse, one of my biggest roles is to help equip or educate the parents in making some healthful conclusive decisions towards their child that is not harmful. For example, my patient is 24 years old, born with cerebral palsy, respiratory distress and severe scoliosis. There was a time the family was faced with an ethical dilemma situation, to have the child undergo under the knife to correct her scoliosis or to ignore the surgery. The family involved me in decision making to help educate or provide them with my clinical rationale to help them in making a rightful decision. I was very careful not to let my personal moral values interfere with my professional ethics. My professional moral values adopted during my years of practicing nursing always gets reformed with new beliefs, thereby enabling me to provide better ethical care, education and support during my career. At the end of the day, they were able to make a conclusive decision not to get their child under the knife by judging how present quality of life and the status …show more content…
When situation throws one to opposing conflict of decisions, intention and actions conjugating wrong and right. Health care workers are daily battling with common ethical dilemma based on religious and spiritual formation. As a Catholic we do not support abortion, but there is exception to the rule only when clinical and scientific evidence has shown a mother’s life is in danger, thereby it is not considered abortion but, saving of a life that is seen. The above circumstance affects the nurse’s sense of making effective decision towards providing quality care to her patients, placing her to facing ethical dilemma which would in turn make her to invoke the nurses’ code of ethics which says “The nurses should always strive to safeguard patient’s right, and their well-being while maintaining professional integrity (American Nurses Association 2012).”
My passion for nursing grew when I was a child, because my grandfather was a nurse. I appreciate the love and gratitude his clients exhibited as a sign of reward from them been cured from their ailment, after receiving their treatment from him. I also see the trust they have in him that they confide in him for everything regarding their health. When I reminisce about this, I feel overjoyed because I see this everyday at my