Health Ethics

Ethical are so ubiquitous that one might be tempted to regard them as simple commonsense. On the other hand, if morality were nothing more than commonsense, then why are there so many ethical disputes and issues in our society today? In nursing, ethical issues arise daily. There are issues such as birth, death, abortion, genetics, quality of life, and general human rights. The legal system and ethical system overlap in most situations. Every patient contact can produce a legal or ethical situation. Ethics is an area that changes with time. As our earth continues to evolve new ethical issues arise constantly. Ethical areas have always dealt with there is now also environmental ethics which is reaching the health care field. These issues have always affected the role of the professional health care personal. The efforts to enact and standard may cause conflict in health care settings in which the traditional roles of the nurse are delineated within a bureaucratic structure. Nurses have more direct contact with patients than one can even imagine, which plays a huge role in protecting the patients’ rights, and creating ethical issues for the nurses caring for the various patients they are assigned to. These major principles of healthcare ethics must be upheld in all situations are beneficence, and justice. Beneficence means promoting or doing good. Health care professionals work to promote their clients' best interests and strive to achieve optimal outcomes and must maintain a competent practice level to avoid causing injury or suffering to clients. The principle of nonmaleficence covers reporting suspected abuse to prevent further victimization and protecting clients from chemically impaired nurses and other healthcare practitioners.

The ethical dilemma of confidential information regarding patients being accessed by unnecessary employee’s of a local health care system and used for personal reasons as well as those that are affected by this breach in...