A National Nursing Ethics Summit was recently convened by the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing to focus on the ethical foundations of the nursing profession and the contemporary ethical issues faced by nurses.
Today, nurses experience complex ethical dilemmas due to a changing healthcare environment: the desires of the family don't match the desires of the healthcare staff, inadequate communication about end-of-life care, a lack of resources, a shortage of nurses, maintaining privacy, recruitment and sustainability of the nursing workforce, justice and access to care, quality and safety, and more.
As part of the summit, a series of videos was produced with nurses describing ethical issues and challenges. The first of the series is "What Keeps Nurses Up at Night"
-Seeing CABG/Valve patients that should not have been operated on, and unsurprisingly, sending the patients back to the CCU where they get worse. One patient really comes to mind, and makes me silently cry at times.
-Wondering how I will get screwed over when I go to work the next day.
-What did I forget to do or chart before I came home.
-Should I apply for nursing graduate school or start taking pre-requisites for pre-PA/pre-med.
Mostly what keeps me up at night is browsing YouTube.
Specializes in Medical Oncology, Alzheimer/dementia.
Nothing keeps me up at night, but I do have occasional nagging thoughts about how I just finished a 12 hour shift and felt like I still didn't have enough time to get everything done. I also think about how wasn't able to give each patient equal attention.
Not much keeps me up, but some pts will stick with me & I wonder how they're doing after I leave. I often think of the more frail elderly hip fx pts who were going to be having surgery & hope they did ok. They surprise me more often then not!
More recently, I admitted a pt late in my shift & I had a nagging suspicion she was abused based on her injury, despite her denial. I passed on my thoughts in report to the oncoming nurse & charge. This pt was on my mind until I fell asleep & when I woke up. I was relieved (& saddened) to see officers on the floor to speak with her when I returned that evening.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
I have to agree with the cardiac surgery nurse in the video -- flogging a patient to keep them alive for the family or because the surgeon cannot bear to lose a patient, when the patient has expressed that they've had enough. That keeps me awake.
whichone'spink, BSN, RN
1,473 Posts
-Seeing CABG/Valve patients that should not have been operated on, and unsurprisingly, sending the patients back to the CCU where they get worse. One patient really comes to mind, and makes me silently cry at times.
-Wondering how I will get screwed over when I go to work the next day.
-What did I forget to do or chart before I came home.
-Should I apply for nursing graduate school or start taking pre-requisites for pre-PA/pre-med.
Mostly what keeps me up at night is browsing YouTube.