Healthcare Ethics
This ethical principle requires healthcare providers to respect a patient's right to make their own medical decisions, even if those decisions go against medical advice.
What is autonomy?
According to most healthcare codes of ethics, this is the nurse’s primary commitment—above all else.
What is the patient?
Patients have the right to be told the facts about their condition, treatment options, and risks, a principle known as this.
What is informed consent?
A nurse is torn between respecting a competent patient’s wish to go home and the family’s demand to keep them hospitalized. This is an example of this type of ethical conflict.
What is an autonomy vs. beneficence dilemma?
This person has the legal and ethical right to make decisions about their own healthcare if they are competent.
Who is the patient?
This principle means healthcare professionals should always act in the best interest of the patient to improve health and well-being.
What is beneficence?
This term describes the obligation to protect a patient’s personal health information and share it only with authorized individuals.
What is confidentiality?
This right allows patients to say “no” to treatments, even if refusing could result in harm or death.
What is the right to refuse treatment?
: A doctor knows a terminal patient’s prognosis is grim but the family has asked not to tell the patient. This situation creates a dilemma involving this moral principle.
What is veracity (truth-telling)?
When a patient cannot make decisions, this person or group may be called on to decide based on the patient’s known wishes or best interests.
What is a healthcare proxy or surrogate decision-maker?
Known as “do no harm,” this principle guides providers to avoid causing unnecessary pain, suffering, or injury.
What is nonmaleficence?
This part of the code of ethics requires nurses to advocate for safe environments and fair treatment of all individuals.
What is advocacy?
This patient right ensures that information about their diagnosis, treatment, and records is kept private.
What is the right to confidentiality?
A nurse sees a colleague make a medication error but is unsure whether to report it. This is a classic case of a dilemma involving this principle.
What is professional accountability?
This team collaborates to provide guidance on complex ethical decisions in hospitals, often including doctors, nurses, social workers, and ethicists.
What is the ethics committee?
This principle is concerned with fairness, equity, and ensuring all patients have equal access to care and resources.
What is justice?
The code of ethics expects nurses to demonstrate this trait by being honest, accountable, and dependable in all professional actions.
What is integrity?
Patients have the right to be treated without discrimination, regardless of race, religion, gender, or income level—this is part of this ethical concept.
What is the right to equal and respectful care?
A life-saving treatment is available, but the hospital has only one dose left and two patients in need. This type of ethical dilemma is based on this principle.
What is justice (resource allocation)?
: In the absence of clear directives, this legal document guides decisions about healthcare preferences if the patient becomes unable to communicate.
What is an advance directive (living will)?
This principle focuses on building trust through honesty, loyalty, and honoring professional responsibilities.
What is fidelity?
Nurses must promote this concept by collaborating with other healthcare professionals and respecting the unique contributions of each discipline.
What is interprofessional respect (or collaboration)?
This right protects patients from being involved in research or experimental treatments without full knowledge and voluntary agreement.
What is the right to informed participation?
A patient wants to stop life-sustaining treatment, but their healthcare team struggles emotionally with letting them go. This dilemma highlights the tension between professional responsibility and this human factor.
What is personal values/emotional conflict?
This concept emphasizes the importance of involving patients or their representatives in decisions affecting care, promoting respect and shared decision-making.
What is patient autonomy?