Question:
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia has created a number of guiding documents that will guide Australian Registered Nurses during their practice. These documents also have relevance for you as a nursing student, especially during your clinical placements.
These documents include
The Code of Ethics for Nurses in Australia (2008).
2006 Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses Australia
The Practice Standards for Registered Nurses (effective Date: 1 June 2016)
The Nurses Guide to Professional Limitations (2010)
The Social Media Policy (2008).
Task.
To support your discussion, you will need to refer to the literature and explain why you believe what you do.
Answer:
Introduction
Gallup’s Annual Honesty & Ethical Standards Poll (DEC20), 2016 showed that nursing was the most trusted profession for the fifteenth consecutive year.
According to Merriam Webster (1828), trust is a belief in the character, strength, or truth of someone.
To be trusted by others, someone must display a certain character, trait or individual strength.
Johnstone, 2016. Personal characteristics and principles that govern your thinking or response to situations are also part of a person’s character.
It can be deduced from the poll that the nursing profession was ranked the most trusted because it had reached a significant milestone in service delivery.
This could have been possible if the nursing profession had followed a set of principles and standards that governed the code of conduct as well as the regulatory frameworks for the provision of services.
This essay will examine the role of two documents that were produced by the Australian board of nursing and midwifery in clinical practice.
These documents include the code for ethics for nurses in Australia (2008) as well as the professional boundaries (2010) nurse’s guide.
These documents are also relevant in clinical practice, which will be addressed in the essay.
The Relevance of the Nurses’ Code Of Ethics for Clinical Practice
According to Gormley (2015), a code of ethics is a set of principles that are supported by explanations or position papers.
According to Gormley (2015), the code for ethics for nurses is a set of principles that have been created to promote accountability among all health care professionals and encourage responsible nursing practices in all areas of health care, including research, education, and management.
These principles outline the commitment of nursing professionals to respect the rights of users as well as the rights of nurses.
These code of ethics serve as the competency standards for nurses practitioners.
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia has created the codes of ethics governing health care professionals in relation to health care provision.
According to Holt & Convey (2012), the first code of ethics was that nurses value providing quality nursing care to all patients.
It is a way of evaluating the quality of nursing. This implies that nurses will be fully responsible and accountable for the standard of care they provide.
It will help ensure that the interests of the recipient of health care are taken into consideration.
It will help to guide colleagues’ relationships by reporting unethical behavior from their members and supporting those who follow the established standards.
According to the second code of ethics, nurses should value, respect, kindness, and be kind to others in order to assess their morality and dignity (Korhonen 2015).
This code of ethics is essential because it promotes self-worth, especially respect for colleagues, patients and recipients of health care, as well as respect for the whole community.
It considers the standards and values of communities regarding health care provision.
On the other hand, kindness ensures that you do your activities with kindness, care, consideration.
As stated in the code, nurses should value diversity.
Gormley (2015) states that it is essential because it helps to understand different cultures and languages.
It will help nurses understand and appreciate cultural differences and similarities.
This will allow for a better evaluation of and a more effective response to the concerns and needs of both the recipients and the people they care for during a health encounter.
Gardener (2016) also indicates that nurses value informed decisions because it allows them to voice their concerns during a health encounter.
This allows one to value the individual’s moral rights as outlined in the human right.
It helps to respect the rights of colleagues.
It allows health care providers to appreciate the contributions of the community to health-care decision making.
It will enable the health care providers to advise the community about any health concerns that may arise.
It is also an ethical code that nurses believe in ethical management of information, as denoted Henderson and Dahnke (2015).
It is vital because it allows health professionals to follow the set nursing principles and obligations.
It is important to keep medical records and other documents safe as altering them could have serious health consequences.
Professionalism is required when recording or recording health information or data.
Relevance of The Nurse’s Handbook To Professional Boundaries
This document was created in Australia and New Zealand to complement the nurses’ code and nurses’ codes of ethics.
It is a list of minimum standards that nurses must uphold both internally and externally in order to maintain good standing within their professions (Australia and New Zealand: 2010, 2010).
Korhonen (2015) states that these boundaries are used to regulate the behaviour of health care professionals and set ethical standards.
The nurse’s conduct should conform to the codes of professional conduct.
It must also address a clearly defined therapeutic need of the patient.
It should also be within the scope and practice of a nurse, which will allow the nurse to be competent enough for certain tasks.
According to the NCSBN professional boundaries are the gap between nurse’s power, and patient’s vulnerability.
It is important for nurses to recognize power imbalances and foster or ensure patient-centered relationships.
Any breach of boundaries can have serious consequences for either the nurse and the recipient of care (Paschke 2017).
This is where boundary crossing is intentional and allowed while the nurse attempts to address a specific therapeutic need.
However, it is important to avoid repeated boundary crossings.
Henderson and Dahnke (2015), on the other hand, indicate that boundary violations can occur when there is confusion between the needs and preferences of patients and nurses.
If privacy and secrecy terms do not get respected as agreed.
These violations can cause distress for patients and, in most cases, may not be noticed or apparent until the harmful consequences occur (Korhonen 2015).
This is related to the use of social media for commenting or posting anything during a medical encounter without the consent from the recipient.
It can also be distressing and a violation of professional boundaries.
Sexual misconduct is another form of professional boundary. This falls under the extreme forms boundary violations (Gardner & McCutcheon 2015).
This is a criminal offense because it can refer to any sexual misconduct, harassment, sexually demeaning, or reasonable interpretation of sexual behavior by the patient (Lachman 2015).
These boundaries should be kept in mind by all health professionals, regardless of whether they are in clinical, management or education.
This will ensure that nurses are working in therapeutic relationships and will be aware and able to avoid border crossings.
Conclusion
The research shows that the health profession is vitally important and sensitive.
The code of ethics and guide to professional boundaries are essential for improving the performance and effectiveness of the health profession in providing healthcare.
Both health care providers as well as recipients of health services must be aware of and have a good understanding of the issues in each of these documents.
These papers are essential for me as a student in health care. They will give me guidelines and direction to my code of conduct and code of ethics, and will help me set professional boundaries.
This will help me better understand the needs of my patients and improve my service delivery.
This will ensure that the health profession is the best and most trusted.
Refer to
A multi-case study using mixed methods to examine the experiences of nurse practitioners and doctors working together in primary healthcare in Australia.
An exploratory grounded theory constructivist study on boundary maintenance by mental health professionals.
Australian Nursing & Midwifery Journal 23(6): 30-33.
Results of a logic analysis: A process-based framework for nurse practitioners integration in primary healthcare teams.
Henderson, M., & Dahnke M. D. (2015). The Ethical Use Of Social Media In Nursing Practice.MEDSURG Nursing. 24(1): 62-64.
Nursing Standard, 27(13), 51–56. Ethical practice in nursing.
A brief history of key milestones in Australia’s operationalization of professional nursing ethics:
Australian Journal Of Advanced Nursing 33(4): 35-45.
A brief history of key milestones in Australia’s operationalization of professional nursing ethics:
Australian Journal Of Advanced Nursing 33(4): 35-45.
An integrative review of professional ethics in nursing.
Practical Clinical Application, Part II of the New ‘Code of Ethics and Interpretative Statements for Nurses’ (2015).
MEDSURG Nursing, 24(5): 363-368.
American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing position paper: The role of the registered nurse in Ambulatory Care.
Nursing Economic$, 35(1): 39-47.
A developing classification of advanced skills for nurses.
Australian Journal Of Advanced Nursing 32(4), 40-46