Professional Roles and Values Task 2: Ethical Principle Application

Competencies:
740.1.4: Professional Accountability – The graduate analyzes the responsibilities and accountability of the professional nurse.
740.1.5: Self Advocacy of the Nurse – The graduate integrates strategies of self-awareness and self-care into professional practice to ensure personal health and well-being.
740.1.7: Roles of the Nurse (WGU) – The graduate analyzes the roles of the nurse as a scientist, a detective, and a manager of the healing environment.
740.1.10: The Nursing Profession – The graduate applies historical and contemporary nursing theories and models to define their professional nursing practice.
740.1.13: The Professional Nurse – The graduate integrates knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the nursing profession into personal and professional interactions and ethical decision making.
740.1.15: Healthcare Work Environment – The graduate evaluates how the vision, values, mission, and philosophy of an organization align with an individual’s professional values, beliefs, and approaches to inter-professional collegiality.

Task 2: Ethical Principle Application

Introduction:

The purpose of this task is to explore how nursing ethics, self-advocacy, and professional accountability can be applied in clinical practice. Using the provided case scenario, you will be required to think about how ethical concepts can be used to make clinical decisions and explore the differences in personal and professional beliefs. You will develop personalized stress management plans that rely on the use of adaptive coping strategies to ensure personal health and well-being.

Scenario:

You have been working as a nurse in the adult oncology unit for the past year. You have developed a close relationship with many of your patients, but Mr. Newcomb has a special place in your heart. He has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and has undergone aggressive chemotherapy. Each day his wife has come to the unit to be with her husband. They have been married for over 40 years and share a deep love.

Mr. and Mrs. Newcomb have made the decision to no longer continue with treatment and have decided that hospice care is needed. Over the past few days, you have watched Mr. Newcomb’s health decline, and you can tell from your experience that he does not have much time left to live. Mr. Newcomb has been very open about discussing his death, and you have had the opportunity to learn about his life and the legacy he will leave behind.

While you are completing your rounds, you stop in Mr. Newcomb’s room to see how he is doing. You ask, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” Mr. Newcomb has rarely asked for anything, but today he has one request. Mr. Newcomb states, “Before I die, I would like to see my mistress one more time. Mrs. Newcomb is always here. Do you think you could tell her that I will be busy for a few hours tomorrow so I can make arrangements to see my mistress one more time?”

Reflect on the following questions before you begin working on this task:

●   What would you do in this scenario?

●   How can your knowledge of ethical principles be utilized to determine your response to Mr. Newcomb?

●   How would this affect you as a nurse and direct provider of care for Mr. Newcomb?
Requirements:

Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. Use the Turnitin Originality Report available in Taskstream as a guide for this measure of originality.

You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.

A.  Summarize how the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice apply to the scenario by doing the following:

1.  Describe how you would respond to Mr. Newcomb’s request.

2.  Evaluate how you applied the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice to the scenario.

3.  Examine how personal beliefs and values influenced your response to the scenario.

4.  Describe three strategies to promote self-care.
B.  Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.

C.  Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.