Question:
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia developed a variety of guiding documents to assist Australian Registered Nursing Practitioners. These guidelines also apply to you as a nursing student during your clinical placements.
These documents include
The Code of Ethics For Nurses in Australia (2008).
The Code of Professional Conduct of Nurses in Australia (2006),
The Registered nurse practice standards (effective date: 1 June 2016).
The Nurses Guide to Professional Boundaries (2010)
The Social Media Policy (2008).Task.
This task requires that you choose two of the following documents and then write a formal essay describing how they will affect your clinical practice.
The existing literature will be used to support your discussion. You must also explain why you think the way you do.
Answer to Question: NURS11159 Introduction To Nursing
Introduction
Gallup’s Annual Ethical and Honesty Standards Poll (DEC20, 2016), revealed that nursing was the most trusted profession. This is its 15th year.
Merriam Webster (1828) defined trust as “a firm belief” in someone’s character, strength, and truth.
To be trusted by others, a person must show a specific character, trait or individual strength.
Johnstone, 2016, states that character is built from personal characteristics and principles that influence your ability to think or respond to the situation.
This poll shows that the nursing profession is the most trusted. It has reached significant milestones in its service delivery.
This could have been possible because the nurses had followed certain standards and principles that govern the code and regulatory frameworks for service delivery.
This essay examines two guiding documents from the board of nursing, midwifery and other health care in clinical practice.
These materials include both the code of ethics (2008) for nurses in Australia and the professional boundaries (2010) for nurses’ guides.
These documents will also be discussed in this essay.
Relevance Of The Nurses’ Code Of Ethics To Clinical Practice
Gormley (2015) describes a code for ethics as a list of binding principles supported with explanations and position papers.
According to Gormley (2015), the code ethics for nurses is a collection of principles that are designed to encourage responsibility in nursing practice and provide a framework to accountability for all health care professions.
These principles describe the commitment made by nursing practitioners to promote respect and protect and uphold fundamental rights for both the users of their services and those of their patients.
These code ethics act as competency standards to nurses practitioners.
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia developed the codes of ethical for health care professionals.
The first code of ethical was created in 2012. It stated that nurses are committed to providing high quality nursing care for all. (Holt & Convey 2012).
It states that nurses will accept full responsibility for the quality of their care.
It will also help to ensure that the interest of the patient receiving the care is considered and taken into consideration.
It will also help guide the relationships between colleagues by reporting any unethical behaviours from their members and supporting those who conform to the set standards.
The second code of ethical stated that nurses value, value, and show kindness to each other. It helps them assess the moral worth and dignity of others. Korhonen, 2015.
This code is vital because it will encourage self-worth by respecting your colleagues, patients and others who receive health care as well as the community.
It considers their standards and beliefs about health care.
Kindness ensures that your actions are carried out with kindness, respect, and consideration.
The code of ethics also states that nurses must value the diversity and contributions of all people.
Gormley (2015) argues that this is crucial as it allows for an understanding of different cultures and languages.
It will also aid in understanding and appreciation of cultural similarities and differences. Therefore, it is crucial for nurses to acquire cultural knowledge and awareness.
This will allow the nurses to better understand and respond to the concerns of patients receiving health care, as well as those who are being treated by them.
Gardener (2016) also states that nurses value informed and well-informed decision-making. This allows them to express their opinions on any unavoidable issue during a health encounter.
You can also respect the moral rights of each individual as defined in the human Rights.
It also helps in respecting the rights and interests of their colleagues.
It allows health care professionals to acknowledge the contribution of the community in health care decision making.
Therefore, the health care providers can advise the community on impending health issues.
It is also an ethical code stating that nurses should value ethical information management as defined by Henderson & Dahnke (2015).
It is crucial because it enables health practitioners in their medical careers to comply with the nursing requirements and follow established principles.
It’s important for medical records and documents to be kept safe, since any alteration could have major health consequences.
It is essential to show professionalism when recording and recording any health data.
Relevance of the Nurse’s Guide to Professional Boundaries
This document was written in Australia and New Zealand in order to be a complement to the codes of ethics of nurses and nurses.
It, therefore refers to minimum standards nurses need to adhere to internally and externally within their professional domains to ensure the good standing of the profession. Australia and New Zealand: 2010.
Korhonen (2015) indicates that these boundaries can be used as a way to control the conduct of health care providers in order to establish the ethical standards.
In other words, the nurse should behave in accordance with the codes for professional conduct and ethics.
It should be able to meet a clearly identified therapeutic need.
It should also fall within the scope of practice for the nurse. This will aid the nurse in being competent enough to do certain tasks.
According to the NCSBN, professional boundaries refers to the distance between nurse’s power levels and patient vulnerability.
The NCSBN requires nurses to be respectful of power imbalances and promote or maintain a patient-centered relationship.
Any violation of the boundaries has some consequences or implications for the nurse or the patient receiving health care (Paschke 2017, 2017).
This case, the border crossing is deliberate and allows for some time to fulfill a patient’s therapeutic needs.
It is best to avoid any repetitions of boundary crossing.
Henderson and Dahnke (2015) also note that boundary violations may occur when there’s confusion or a misinterpretation between the patient’s needs and the nurse’s.
In other words, privacy and secrecy terms that are not adhered to as agreed.
These violations can cause distress to patients. In most cases, they may not be visible or obvious until serious consequences occur (Korhonen 2015.
The use of social networking to comment or post during a healthcare encounter without the consent and authorization of the recipient is another example.
It is also distressing.
Sexual misconduct falls under the category of extreme boundary violations.
It is a criminal offense as it could refer to seductive behavior, harassing or sexually demeaning patients. (Lachman, 2015).
These boundaries must be maintained by health professionals working in clinical, education, research, or management.
These boundaries will ensure that nurses work within therapeutic relationships. They will also be aware of any border crossings and their implications to help avoid future ones.
Conclusion
Based on the findings of the research, it is clear that the health professions are very important and sensitive.
To improve the quality and effectiveness of health care provision, the code and guide to professional boundaries must be followed.
Both health care professionals and health care recipients must have knowledge or understanding of the issues addressed in the two documents.
These two papers, in my opinion, will be essential in my clinical practice, as they will provide guidelines for the code, code, and ethics.
All this will enable me to better understand the needs of patients and improve my service delivery.
It will help ensure that the profession of health is respected as one of the most trustworthy.
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