Reflection on Professional and Ethical Issues Sample for Students

Question: Discuss about the Reflection on Professional and Ethical Issues. Answer: During practice, it is necessary for the nurses to know the key elements of the professional and ethical issues. The issues may create challenges for the nurses that need to be overcome. According to Wilcoxon, Remley Jr and Gladding (2013, p.21), the nurses need to know about the codes of Ethics for the nurses. Her ethical codes of practice guide the students of bachelors degree to a variety of settings. The code of practice help the nurses to know that how to treat others in the care setting. The main aim of the ethics is to promote the practice safely. This is effective for both the nurses and patients. In view of Scott (2016, p.46), everyone has freedom to make decision regarding their health and others need to respect those decisions. These ethics help to improve the self-confidence of the nurses as well as the patients. The nurses need to focus on the wellbeing of the patients with dignity and respect. During my bachelors degree, when I was recruited to the psychiatric department, I noticed many things. I experienced the mal practice of the ethics. Jonsen, Siegler and Winslade (2015, p.54) mentioned that the nurses need to more polite with the patients and should not mal practice the professional codes of ethics. However, I found that most of nurses do misbehave with the patients who are suffering from dementia. They did not show respect to the patient and did not provide proper caring to the patients. They did not show minimum dignity or respect to the patients. In this case, I felt very awkward to work with them. Masters (2015, p.214) mentioned that in case of health care sector, the communication plays important role. However, the nurses with me did not communicate with the patients properly and most of the time they were busy with their personal interest. These kind of practices are completely different form the ethics and unauthentic as well. I decided to discuss this with my senior subject coordinator. She assured me that she would discuss the matter with the senior medical officers to improve the situation. After few days, the authority called a meeting with us and asked for a training session. During the training session, we have learnt many things about the patient care. In the training session, few of the nurses were warned about their mal practices. However, those nurses did not feel necessity to follow the guidance of the ethics and continued the mal practices. The higher authority dismissed those nurses to improve the situation. The patient with dementia and other mental problems need more attention and caring (Singhapakdi, Rallapalli and Rao 2015, p.269). Therefore, the higher authority decided to place CCRV camera in the wards to observe the behavior of the nurses. After placing the CCTV camera, it was seen that most of the nurses modified their behavior and concentrated on their workings. Strange (2015, p.32) stated that the mental patients cannot communicate properly hence, they cannot express themselves properly. The nurses need to know the verbal and non-verbal communication skills to communicate with the mental patients. After joining the department, I have learnt many things like non-verbal communication skills. I developed my body language and learnt about the sign language to communicate with the patients who are suffering from mental diseases. I try to follow the ethics, which help to understand the authentic and unauthentic practices in nursing. I try to communicate properly with the patient and maintain the dignity. My subject coordinator helped me to develop some skills and techniques to achieve better outcome. In case of health care system and during working in the psychiatric department, I come to know that I need to maintain the confidentiality and obey the Data Protection Act. My subject coordinator advised me to gain the trust of the patient first so t hat he could share his feelings and problems with me properly. She also suggested me to avoid the medication errors that most of the nurses do. Makela and Sampson (2017, p.56) mentioned that the medication errors can be fetal for the patients, hence the nurses need to be more careful during administration of medication. I tried to be more careful during providing the medication as it can affect my career as well. Wrong medication can be dangerous for both the nurses and patients (Cherry and Jacob 2016, p.62). I naturally share the important information of the patients with the family members of the patients and with my senior advisers. DeCamp (2015, p.100) mentioned that it is the responsibility of a nurse to protect the crucial data with confidentiality and should not share them with others. As per the ethics, during working in the health care center, the nurses need to be careful about the patient safety. Hence, I need to be careful about the patient hygiene. I need to sterilize the necessary equipments such as injections on the regular basis. Huston (2013, p.24) mentioned that there are various things that a nurse needs to maintain for the patient hygiene. In need to wash my hands after using the toilet. Moreover, I need to help the patient as well to wash his or her hand every time they use the toilet. I need to help the patient in their personal caring to avoid the infection. The codes of ethics state that it is the responsibility of a nurse to respect the emotion of the patients and protect them from the hazard (Preshaw et al. 2016, p.495). They need to provide quality care to the patients. As a nurse, I need to focus on my career and on the patients. I need to manage the intravenous line and record the details of my patients. It is my duty to help the patients physically and mentally, who needs the physical and mental support. As mentioned by McMenemy, Poulter and Burton (2014, p .36), the patients depends on the nurses mostly therefore they need to provide support to them for the wellbeing. In this respect, I need to mention one of my bad experiences that I faced during working in the ward. On that day, my subject coordinator instructed me to give the injections to the patients. One of a patient was not agreed for the medication and I was trying to inject the injection. In such situation, I lost my patience and tried to administer the injection forcefully, which hurt the patient. This was unethical and my subject coordinator handled the situation very carefully. She advised me to keep patience in such cases and I should not force him for the injection. I needed to relax him at first. She suggested me that if I could not handle the situation, then I need to ask for her help further. I realized that I need to be more firm and polite during working with the dementia patients and do not force them for anything. I have learnt many things during working under my subject coordinator and she helped me much. Brown (2015, p.57) opined that the nurses need to gain knowledge from their experience and put that experience in further cases. I need to respect the patients with dignity as well as the family members of them. It is my responsibility to protect my patients from hazards and problems. As the patient had fear in administration of injection, I need to make him feel comfortable at first and try to teach him the necessity of the injection, which I did not do. I need to remind the experience in future so that I do not face such situation again. I need to learn about the codes of ethics in detail t rectify myself and handle the patients more carefully that will help to grow my career graph. I am improving myself with the time and gaining more knowledge that will help in f uture. I hope can handle the patients in better way in future and will be able to avoid the unethical practices and conflict. After the bachelors degree, I hope can join as a registered nurse in an organization, which is a responsible job. On the basis of above discussion, I can conclude that in nursing the professional codes of ethics play major role. As a student of bachelors degree of nursing, I need to follow the guidelines of the ethics. . These ethics help to improve the self-confidence of the nurses as well as the patients. The nurses need to focus on the wellbeing of the patients with dignity and respect. I should be careful about the patient hygiene and maintain them. I need to be more polite and responsible to the patients. I should not share the confidential data with others without the permission of the patient and family members. It is my responsibility to protect my patients from hazards and problems. I need to provide quality care to the patients and should not do any unethical practice that can harm my career. I should maintain the equality and reduce the practice of biasness. References: Brown, G., 2015. Ethical and Moral Courage is Distress among Professional Nurses: A Workplace Issue.ABNF Journal,26(3), p.57. Cherry, B. and Jacob, S.R., 2016.Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, management. Elsevier Health Sciences. DeCamp, M., 2015. Ethical issues when using social media for health outside professional relationships.International Review of Psychiatry,27(2), pp.97-105. Huston, C.J., 2013.Professional issues in nursing: Challenges and opportunities. Lippincott Williams Wilkins. 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