Law, professional ethics and the problem of conflict with personal values.
There are, on occasions, instances in which a nurse may not agree with a given medical order of prescribed treatment. This is particularly likely in cases involving the use of extraordinary means of life-saving treatments on chronically or terminally ill patients. In such instances, the nurse may either (1) refuse to carry out the given medical order(s) or (2) refuse/decline to care for the patient in question (e.g. the nurse may instead request to be assigned a different patient in an attempt to avoid a personal dilemma). In cases where medical orders stand to violate the law, a nurse's refusal to carry out the medical order(s) in question might be seen to be fully justified; where medical orders violate nothing more than a philosophical or personal sense of right and wrong, however, justification for refusing to carry out such orders may not seem so defensible. This paper will critically examine the questions of when, if ever, a nurse might be justified on other than legal grounds (given the sometimes inappropriate and inadequate nature of law) to either (1) refuse to carry out a doctor's orders or (2) refuse/decline to care for a given patient. These questions will be discussed in relation to a real life scenario.
Johnstone
M J
MJ
School of Nursing (Clinical Department), Phillip Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
D001315:Australia; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D008020:Life Support Care; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D011640:Public Policy; D012945:Social Values