YOU are nurse and apart of healthcare team and your patient comes from a culture in which it is considered wrong to tell patients that they are dying .you are unclear how to respond to a Family's request to conceal the truth from a dying patient
Question
GUIDED BY PALESTINIAN NURSES CODE OF ETHICS, HOW CAN YOU SOLVE THIS PROBLEM MENTIONING THE INFLUENCES OF THE CODE IN SOLVING THE PROBLEM
We don't have any firm rules on this, which is why it's one of the many gray areas of medical ethics.
We have a lot of people of Pacific Islanders and Southeast asian cultures in my area, and we often get requests to withhold information from patients. For the most part, we can't fully honor these requests since our healthcare culture is based on patient autonomy. Ensuring the patient is able to make informed decisions about their healthcare is done with as much cultural sensitivity as possible, while still following the basic principles we are bound by. So, the short answer is, when the American healthcare culture and other cultures conflict, the American healthcare culture wins, but we try to be polite about it.
First off it is the doctor not the nurse who gives this news. Just like giving results of a test we do not do it. As far as the rest you take care of the pt and family as well. Will respecting family wishes harm pt or put them in discomfort? They don't want it told I will not tell , but they better have a DNR signed or we will be discussing DNR and what having vs not having one means.
We give test results all the time, that's actually part of every State's Nurse Practice Act. All RN's are responsible for making sure patients are informed about their care, including test results, in a timely manner, and RN's are expected to have a workable understanding of tests and how to educated patients about the results.
It was a little different when I worked in a teaching hospital, since there were always a ton of students who needed this experience, but everywhere else I've worked if the Nurse doesn't tell the patient their test results, they'll never know, with the exceptions of real 'doosies'.
We give test results all the time, that's actually part of every State's Nurse Practice Act. All RN's are responsible for making sure patients are informed about their care, including test results, in a timely manner, and RN's are expected to have a workable understanding of tests and how to educated patients about the results.
It was a little different when I worked in a teaching hospital, since there were always a ton of students who needed this experience, but everywhere else I've worked if the Nurse doesn't tell the patient their test results, they'll never know, with the exceptions of real 'doosies'.
Of course we give test results- all oncology parents want to know labs the minute they are back. But when the test results are particularly bad and warrant a conversation about treatment options or direction of care, the MD needs to give those results. I might know that a child's MRI showed rapidly progressing cancer but no way would I be the one to present that information.
MunoRN, RN
8,058 Posts
We don't have any firm rules on this, which is why it's one of the many gray areas of medical ethics.
We have a lot of people of Pacific Islanders and Southeast asian cultures in my area, and we often get requests to withhold information from patients. For the most part, we can't fully honor these requests since our healthcare culture is based on patient autonomy. Ensuring the patient is able to make informed decisions about their healthcare is done with as much cultural sensitivity as possible, while still following the basic principles we are bound by. So, the short answer is, when the American healthcare culture and other cultures conflict, the American healthcare culture wins, but we try to be polite about it.