Ethics- What's the BIGGEST Nursing Ethical Dilemma

CrufflerJJ, BSN, RN, EMT-P · Jun 28, 2009

How about something along the lines of balancing staffing ($$$) versus level of care given to patients. Short/minimal staffing throws additional stress & feelings of guilt on nurses who feel incapable of providing the level of care they feel that they owe to their patients.

Either that, or deciding between chocolate vs vanilla ice cream. :-)

volunteerpioneer · Jun 28, 2009

That's a good one I wouldn't have even thought of myself, thank you!

You are saving my teacher from reading another PAS or blood donor paper :specs:

CrufflerJJ, BSN, RN, EMT-P · Jul 2, 2009

That's a good one I wouldn't have even thought of myself, thank you!
You are saving my teacher from reading another PAS or blood donor paper

Glad to help! Yes, it's surprising just how few nurses feel that the chocolate vs vanilla ice cream dilemma is worthy of further academic research. An equally overlooked issue facing many of us in the current economic climate is choosing between regular boring yucky milk chocolate versus the most holy strong flavored delicious bittersweet chocolate (especially Lindt bittersweet chocolate with dried raspberries).

Oh... you meant the thing about balancing staffing $$$ vs level of patient care. Sorry you felt that way. Booooring (compared to chocolate, that is). If you insist on doing the paper on boring economic stuff, you might also work into your paper the ethical choices between quantity of patients served with a fixed dollar amount, versus providing a higher level of care to a much lower number of patients (thoughts of standard level of care vs new research stuff on the "bleeding edge" of technology).

It's not to late to reconsider the topic of your paper - chocolate is important, you know.