What is the significance of health ethics in nursing curriculum?

Answer 1

Nurses are patient's advocates. They are there not just to take care of patients and take doctor's orders, but also nurses are important in other roles.

Nurses have to watch out for patients. Sometimes things are not necessarily done in the best way, and an education in ethics helps nurse to have some understanding of what is right and what is not right. Sometimes it is tough to decide what is the right choices. Nurses have better understanding of patients and family as human being, and that can contribute to the ethical discussion.

The best example of ethics in nursing involvement comes in end of life issue. A nurse must understand what DNR means and why it is sometimes the right thing to take patients off the ventilator - something that can seem so wrong to do. A lot of time, patient's family will expect nurse to explain to them what choices they have and how it can be carried out. Doctors tend not to have time for all questions, and sometimes families are too intimidated to ask the doctors. Nurse's role is crucial in helping patients in the last legs of their lives.

Many nurses end up being directors in medical system, and a background in ethics helps them decide what is best for the medical profession and what is right for the profession. Ethics would help them understand that sometimes the hospital or insurance will expect you to make choices that are to the financial interest and not the patient's interest, and only with a good ethics understanding can a nurse decide what is the right thing to do.

If you consider nursing as a humanistic career - a calling, if you will, then health ethics is one of the most important classes in that nursing curriculum.