Assignment 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Assignment 2 - Essay Example It is important for nurses to learn of the ethical principle of autonomy and how to implement it in the nursing situation (Midgley 2006). The right to autonomy is one of any patient’s ethical rights in a situation where they are under the care of medical personnel (Somerville and Keeling 2004). In this case, the registered nurses had the responsibility of overseeing or supervising the work of their mentees while also ensuring that their professional responsibilities were fulfilled. Another ethically based nursing principle, beneficence, holds that nurses should act with kindness, charity, and mercy towards their patients (Myrick and Yonge 2005). This basically means that nurses should not bring additional harm to their patients. A third ethical principle, nonmaleficence, has to do with avoiding a situation where a patient is caused unintentional harm (Curtin 2005). Another ethical principle in nursing practice is veracity (Dalton 2005). Veracity basically refers to truth telli ng in all situations. As far as the ethical principle of advocacy is concerned, it would appear that not all student nurses were satisfied with the skills and relations given to them by their mentors. The principle of confidentiality basically has to do with respecting a patient's right to privacy. This is particularly important for patients who have illnesses that carry social stigma such as A.I.D.S (Cuevas 2008). WERE THERE ANY ETHICAL CONFLICTS? Autonomy According to Brammer, there are different ways in which the student nurses and mentors may interpret what it means to function in a supervisory role (Brammer, 2008). This may bring different problems in cases where nursing students are expected to ease the burden of the mentor by indicating that the mentor was present during the examination of a patient or in writing notes on the physical conditions of patients that they might not have personally examined as a favor to their overworked mentors. This also breaches the ethical prin cipal of autonomy. Another situation that brings into focus issues concerning with autonomy has to do with the ministrations of student nurses towards their patients (Jansson, Pilhammar, and Forsberg 2009). Beneficence From the reactions of some of the student nurses in this case study, not all the mentors were diligent in practicing the ethical principle of beneficence in their dealings with their mentees. It is not uncommon for training nurses to claim that they do not feel respected by their supervisors or seniors. This does not merely have to do with being ignored, but also the allocation of extra work with little supervision. Given that the registered nurses function as ‘gate keepers’ who wield enormous power over the future careers of their mentees, it can become quite disheartening for their mentees when they are not treated with the charity and kindness that are part of the ethical principal of beneficience (Yildirim, Ozkahraman, and Karabudak 2011). Nonmalefice nce For student nurses, it is very important for them to have enough time with their mentors when looking after patients. Moreover, it would appear from this case that the student nurses recognized that their mentors could perform important tasks faster than they