Hello, I'm a nursing student for the army and we ran into an ethical conflict today regarding DNR's. The patient we had today is on DNR and has mucous deep down her throat. The students were told that we would not suction because it would "not be comfortable" to the patient. Yes she is terminally ill and may be on palliative care since she was admitted from a hospice. Even with that, should we still ignore this problem?
In addition the patient refuses to eat. Currently she is on a lot of morphine and anything I do with her you can tell she's in pain. She'd respond with moaning and will look you in the eyes. Now even though she doesn't want to eat, does that mean we should let her starve? Does she need some kind of order to allow her to make those decisions?