Funda

• Ethics


  Study of conduct and character, concerned with determining what is good or valuable for individuals
• Basic ethical principles


  • Respect for autonomy
  • Nonmaleficence
  • Beneficence
  • Justice
  • Fidelity
• Respect for autonomy


  Individual has the right to act as a free agent, human beings are free to decide how they live their lives as long as their decisions do not negatively impact the lives of others, also have the right to exercise freedom of thought or choice
• Nonmaleficence


  Do no harm, interactions with people should not harm others, should not engage in any activities that run the risk of harming others
• Beneficence


  Taking positive actions to help others, our actions should actively promote the health and well-being of others, best interests of the patient remain more important than self-interest
• Justice


  Being just / fair, rights of one individual or group are balanced against another, assumes three standards: impartiality, equality, and reciprocity
• Fidelity


  Being faithful, involves loyalty, truthfulness, promise keeping, advocacy and respect, unwillingness to abandon patients even when care becomes controversial or complex
• Veracity


  Principle of truth telling, violation includes: act of lying, deliberate exchange of erroneous information, deliberate withholding of all or portions of the truth, deliberate cloaking of information in jargons or language that fails to convey the information
• Advocacy


  Refers to the support of a particular cause, the "cause" is the patient's health, safety, and rights
• Responsibility


  Willingness to respect one's professional obligations and to follow through, following policies and procedures
• Accountability


  Ability to answer for one's actions, ensuring professional actions are explainable to patient and employer
• Values


  A personal belief about the worth of a given idea, attitude, custom, or object that sets standards that influence behavior
• Social networking


  Presents ethical challenge for nurses, risk to privacy is great, being friends online may interfere with ability to maintain a therapeutic relationship (issue of trust)
• Registered nurses


  Responsible & accountable for quality of performance, responsible to immediate superiors
• Standard


  Desired & achievable level of performance against which actual practice is compared, serve as benchmark against which to plan, to implement and assess quality services
• Standard of care


  The legal requirements for nursing practice that describe the minimum acceptable nursing care, reflect the knowledge and skill ordinarily possessed and used by nurses actively practicing the profession
• If you go below standards, it can lead to intentional wrongs (tort)
• Tort


  A legal wrong, committed against a person or property independent of a contract which renders the person who commits it liable for damages in civil action, an action that wrongly causes harm to someone but that is not a crime and that is dealt with in a civil court
• Intentional wrongs (torts)


  • Assault and battery
  • False imprisonment or illegal detention
  • Invasion of rights to privacy & breach of confidentiality
  • Defamation
• Assault


  The imminent threat of harmful or offensive bodily contact, any reasonable threat to a person can cause fear of impending violence in a person even though there is no actual violence inflicted
• Battery


  The actual physical impact on another person, the victim has been touched in a painful, harmful, violent, or offensive way by the person committing the crime
• False imprisonment or illegal detention

  The unjustifiable detention of a person without a legal warrant within boundaries fixed by the defendant by an act or violation of duty intended to result in such confinement
• Invasion of right to privacy & breach of confidentiality

  The right to be left alone, the right to be free from unwarranted publicity and exposure to public view as well as the right to live one's life without having anyone's name, picture or private affairs made public against one's will
• Defamation


  Character assassination, be it written or spoken, includes slander (oral defamation) and libel (defamation by written words, cartoons or such representations that cause a person to be avoided, ridiculed or held in contempt or tend to injure him in his work)
• Negligence


  Commission or omission of an act, pursuant to a duty, that a prudent person in the same or similar circumstance would or would not do, and acting or the non-acting of which is the proximate cause of injury to another person or their property, not intentional harm
• Malpractice


  Implies the idea of improper or unskilful care by the nurse or any professional, the term for negligence or carelessness of professional personnel, often called "Professional Negligence"
• Elements of professional negligence

  • Existence of a duty on the part of the person charged to use due care under circumstances
  • Failure to meet the standard of due care
  • The foreseeability of harm resulting from failure to meet the standard
  • The fact that the breach of this standard resulted in an injury to the plaintiff
• Examples of negligence


  • Burns from hot water bag, hot sitz bath
  • Objects left inside the body
  • Fall
• Administrative offenses


  • Failure to report observations to AP
  • Failure to exercise the degree of diligence which the circumstances of the particular case demands
  • Mistaken identity
  • Wrong meds, conc., route, dose
  • Defects of equipment
  • Errors due to family assistance
• Crime


  An act committed or omitted in violation of the law, composed of two elements: criminal act and evil / criminal intent
• Conspiracy to commit a crime

  When two or more persons agree to commit a felony and decide to do it, persons who commit felonies are either principals, accomplices, or accessories
• Persons who commit felonies

  • Principals (main perpetrator)
  • Accomplices
  • Accessories
• Homicide


  Killing of one person by another, classified as justified homicide, excusable homicide, or criminal homicide
• Justifiable homicide


  Homicide that takes place in the reasonable belief that a serious crime is being committed and in an attempt to prevent the crime, homicide with a good excuse such as self-defense, in defense of others, or on the line of duty (police)
• Excusable homicide


  Homicide committed accidentally or with sufficient provocation while lawful activity, self-defense but not killing in cruel or unusual way
• Criminal homicide


  Unlawful killing of another, divided into categories based on the intent of the person such as murder and manslaughter
• Murder


  Intentional killing of one human being by another with malice aforethought (a state of mind or intent that makes a homicide a murder)
• Voluntary manslaughter


  One person kills another after adequate provocation, the perpetrator had no prior intent to kill the victim and probably acted in the heat of passion
• Involuntary manslaughter


  Unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought, the perpetrator had no intent to kill at all but acted in a reckless or unreasonable manner
• Consent


  A free & rational act that presupposes knowledge of the thing to which consent is being given by a person who is legally capable to give consent