The Role of the Advanced Professional Nurse
The Role of the Advanced Professional Nurse in Creating an Ethical Practice Environment
Nurses face significant challenges in their daily activities, such as intimidation from their superiors and colleagues, negative public opinions, limited resources, organizational influence, and conflicting patients’ needs. These factors pose a challenge when making decisions. Advanced practice nurses are competent and experienced in their work setting and can communicate, collaborate, and support other stakeholders to overcome work-related ethical issues related to non-maleficence, autonomy, justice, and beneficence.
Nurse practitioners work directly with the patients. They diagnose, manage common and chronic illnesses, initiate physical examinations, give a prescription, and educate patients about illnesses (Hobson & Curtis, 2017). They do not discriminate when offering treatment regardless of the patient’s disability, age, sexual orientation, citizenship, economic status, and ethnicity. The nurse practitioner creates an ethical environment when promoting health. They understand that their responsibility for care goes beyond their patients and include patients’ families and other stakeholders. Therefore, nurse practitioners must notify the stakeholders about the treatment regimen and the progress of the patient, which must be done within the patients’ privacy laws.
Furthermore, advanced professional nurses should safeguard the wellbeing of both the patients and other staff members. Therefore, healthcare professionals engaging in unprofessional activities should be reported to nurse leaders (Fowler, 2016). Nurses’ should protect the privacy of patients’ information, especially when dealing with victims of domestic and sexual abuse. Besides, nursing practitioners should report cases of infectious illnesses to prevent the spread of the disease among the patients and staff.
As it is evident from the above discussion, nurses play a significant role in the creation of an ethical working environment. In addition, they support and honor patients’ rights when providing care. Overall, nurses should protect the needs of the patients and other stakeholders while maintaining codes of ethics to create an ethical practice environment.
