Nursing Ethical Dilemmas: Professional Moral Compass In Nursing
Professional Moral Compass
Kelly Ross
Grand Canyon University: NRS437V-O103 Ethical Decision Making in Healthcare
June 15, 2014
Professional Moral Compass A moral compass is defined as: “anything which serves to guide a person’s decisions based on morals or virtues” (moral compass, n.d.). In this paper, the writer will examine what defines her nursing moral compass by taking the reader through her personal nursing ethic, how her personal, cultural and spiritual values have influenced her and what moral and ethical dilemmas she has faced in her nursing career. As this is a personal account, the first section of this paper will be written in first person.
My Moral Compass: My Nursing Ethic
PASSION: Why am I here? I am here due to my desire to nurture and care for others. It took me nearly forty years to figure it out. I had always been one to put others before myself, the mom that opened her doors to neighborhood children and give them love and hot meals, even when I had little for myself. I didn’t choose to be a nurse, nursing chose me.
MOTIVATION: What moves me to act?
My motivation is the firsthand knowledge of how important a nurse is to her …show more content…
In her current and only professional practice, there are not many moral or ethical dilemmas she comes across. Actually, she can not think of one instance. In nursing school, however, she had a community rotation where she was supposed to go to a clinic where abortions were performed and she may have been asked to assist in one. This was both a moral and ethical dilemma that went against all that she believed in. This is a huge controversial subject and this writer soon learned that a nurse could refuse to participate in an abortion but could not refuse to care for the woman before or after the procedure. This writer was able to avoid even being asked as on her assigned date, a snow emergency had been
Kelly Ross
Grand Canyon University: NRS437V-O103 Ethical Decision Making in Healthcare
June 15, 2014
Professional Moral Compass A moral compass is defined as: “anything which serves to guide a person’s decisions based on morals or virtues” (moral compass, n.d.). In this paper, the writer will examine what defines her nursing moral compass by taking the reader through her personal nursing ethic, how her personal, cultural and spiritual values have influenced her and what moral and ethical dilemmas she has faced in her nursing career. As this is a personal account, the first section of this paper will be written in first person.
My Moral Compass: My Nursing Ethic
PASSION: Why am I here? I am here due to my desire to nurture and care for others. It took me nearly forty years to figure it out. I had always been one to put others before myself, the mom that opened her doors to neighborhood children and give them love and hot meals, even when I had little for myself. I didn’t choose to be a nurse, nursing chose me.
MOTIVATION: What moves me to act?
My motivation is the firsthand knowledge of how important a nurse is to her …show more content…
In her current and only professional practice, there are not many moral or ethical dilemmas she comes across. Actually, she can not think of one instance. In nursing school, however, she had a community rotation where she was supposed to go to a clinic where abortions were performed and she may have been asked to assist in one. This was both a moral and ethical dilemma that went against all that she believed in. This is a huge controversial subject and this writer soon learned that a nurse could refuse to participate in an abortion but could not refuse to care for the woman before or after the procedure. This writer was able to avoid even being asked as on her assigned date, a snow emergency had been