Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T02:16:22.334Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Changing Role of Nurses in Making Ethical Decisions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Catherine P. Murphy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In past decades, biomedical technology has created such advances that many health care professionals and consumers are overwhelmed by the apparently unlimited choices in treatment decisions. Problems in human reproduction, preservation of life, research on human subjects, and allocation of scarce resources are just a few of the categories of concerns that we now face. These dilemmas are complex both from conceptual and ethical perspectives. Thus, it becomes more and more difficult to define such important concepts as “human life” or ‘extraordinary treatment,” and to apply these concepts to clinical situations. It has become almost impossible to objectively interpret and apply ethical principles which should guide actions of health care providers.

Type
Nursing Law and Ethics
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , September 1984 , pp. 173 - 184
Copyright
© 1984 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Hellegers, A., Accountability In the Health Care System: To Whom is the Nurse Responsible? Connecticut Medicine 43(10): 5–6 (October Supp. 1979).Google ScholarPubMed
Id. at 6.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A., Modern Organizations (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J.) (1964); Etzioni A., Readings on Modern Organizations (Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood, N.J.) (1969); Georgopoulos B.S. Mann S.C., The Community General Hospital (MacMillan, New York, N.Y.) (1961); Goss M.E.W., Influence and Authority Among Physicians in an Outpatient Clinic, American Sociological Review 26(1): 39–50 (February 1961).Google Scholar
Ashley, J.A., Hospitals, Paternalism, and the Role of the Nurse (Teachers” College Press, New York, N.Y.) (1976) at 16.Google Scholar
Id. at 77.Google Scholar
Murphy, C.P., Moral Reasoning in a Selected Group of Nursing Practitioners, in Perspectives on Nursing Leadership (Ketefian, S., ed.) (Teachers” College Press, New York, N.Y.) (1981) at 45–75.Google Scholar
Murphy, C.P., Models of the Nurse-Patient Relationship, in Ethical Problems in-the Nurse-Patient Relationship (Murphy, C.P. Hunter, H., eds.) (Allyn and Bacon, New York, N.Y.) (1982) at 8–25.Google Scholar
Id. at 11Google Scholar
Id. at 18.Google Scholar
Naisbitt, J., Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives (Warner Books, New York, N.Y.) (1982).Google Scholar
See Three New Studies Seek Reasons for RN Shortage, American Journal of Nursing 81(2): 264 (February 1981); Wandelt, M.A. Pierce, P.M. Widdowson, R.R., Why Nurses Leave Nursing and What Can Be Done About It, American Journal of Nursing 8(1): 72–77 (January 1981).Google Scholar
Kohlberg, L. Scharf, P., Bureaucratic Violence and Conventional Moral Thinking, (unpublished manuscript) (April 1972).Google Scholar
Nursing: A Social Policy Statement (American Nurses Association, Kansas City, MO) (1983) [hereinafter referred to as Social Policy].Google Scholar
Brown, G. Feldsine, E. Piemonte, R., Implementing the Definition of Nursing Practice, Journal of the New York State Nursing Association 6(1): 14–18 (1975).Google ScholarPubMed
Social Policy, supra note 13.Google Scholar
Cassell, E.J., Illness and Disease, Hastings Center Report 6(2): 27–37 (April 1976); Forstrom L.A., The Scientific Autonomy of Clinical Medicine, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2(1): 8–19 (March 1977); Engle G.L., The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine, Science 196(4286): 129–36 (April 8, 1977); Veatch R.M., The Medical Model: Its Nature and Problems, Hastings Center Studies 1(3): 59–76 (1973); Feinstein A.R., Clinical Judgment (Krieger Publishing Co., Melbourne, Fla.) (1974); Murphy E.A., The Logic of Medicine (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md.) (1976); Wu R., Behavior and Illness (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.) (1973); Hellegers, supra note 1.Google ScholarPubMed
Murphy, C.P., Nurses” Views Important on an Ethical Decision Team, The American Nurse 15(10): 12–14 (November/December 1983) [hereinafter cited as Nurses” Views Important].Google Scholar
Classification of Nursing Diagnoses: Proceedings of the Third & Fourth National Conferences (Kim, M.J. Moritz, D.A., eds.) (McGraw-Hill, New York, N.Y.) (1982).Google Scholar
Murphy, C.P., Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing Practice: A Typology (article in progress).Google Scholar
Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Handicap: Procedures and Guidelines Relating to Health Care for Handicapped Infants, 49 Fed. Reg. 1622 (January 12, 1984) (to be codified at 45 C.F.R. § 84); President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.) (1983).Google Scholar
Naisbitt, , supra note 10.Google Scholar
Nurses” Views Important, supra note 17.Google Scholar
Grand Jury Report, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Report of the Special January Additional 1983 Grand Jury” concerning “Do not Resusitate Procedures at a Certain Hospital in Queens County’”; Kirsch, J., Mercy or Murder: A Death at Kaiser Hospital, California, pp. 79–81, 166–175 (November 1982).Google Scholar