Biggest Ethical Concern in Nursing

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Hi all,

I am a nursing student, taking ethics in Nursing. I am not a nurse yet, in fact I am a massage therapist. We have to do a research paper on an ethical situation facing nurses today. So, would you please respond to what you feel is the largest ethical dilemma in nursing today? Any comments are greatly appreciated!

Thanks!!

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.

In my job the biggest ethical dilemma is when to stop treatment as the patient's outlook becomes more and more hopeless. How to sensitively discuss this with patients and families is a big challange, since the subject is rather taboo. We so want to be upbeat and encouraging, so telling someone that it might be better to throw in the towel goes against a nurse's natural instinct. Also, ultimately it's up to the doctor to explain the prognosis, and some doctors are also not good at steering people towards realistic expectations.

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I think you would feel greater satisfaction and a greater feeling of achievement researching this subject through nursing journals, books and mags...oh well , what the heck, I'd want to take a few shortcut's too if I was back in nursing school. One I can think of is when you have a terminal patient and the doctor orders you to give a med that is likely to be lethal to this patient (it does happen.)

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