- Tailored to your requirements
- Deadlines from 3 hours
- Easy Refund Policy
Nurses experience many ethical dilemmas that put their moral values and critical-thinking skills under pressure. This paper aims to present a case scenario of a nurse attending to a terminally ill patient, in which the reader is presented with an ethical dilemma and how this dilemma was solved.
Case Presentation
Sarah Johnson is a 52-year-old lady who was admitted to the hospital with a prognosis of ovarian cancer at an advanced stage. Despite being subjected to several cycles of chemotherapy, her condition worsened significantly in the end. Sarah was desperate; even experts estimated she had a few weeks to live. She had communicated her lack of willingness to opt for aggressive measures that might add days to her life but take away her quality of life and comforts.
Leave assignment stress behind!
Delegate your nursing or tough paper to our experts. We'll personalize your sample and ensure it's ready on short notice.
Order nowDiagnosis/Nursing Assessment
The primary nursing diagnosis for Sarah was "impaired comfort related to progressive terminal illness and inadequate pain management (Mallah et al., 2019)." Additionally, the nurse noted the potential for "complicated grieving" among Sarah's family members, who were struggling to accept her decision to forgo further treatment.
Intervention/Nursing Care Plan
The nursing care plan for Sarah was mainly aimed at her comfort and Tube referral, honoring her preferences. There were issues relating to pain and patient care, and communication with the palliative care team about the correct medication doses and non-drug measures that could be used (Ernstmeyer & Christman, 2021). Emotional care and therapy were offered to Sarah and her parents, who then provided them with what they needed emotionally and enabled communication with them (Lowey, 2020). However, a conflict of interest developed when Sarah’s daughter, a staunch religious fanatic, preferred going for hostile life-sustaining measures against her mother's wishes (Mallah et al., 2019). The daughter concluded that ‘giving up’ was contrary to her religion and entreated the healthcare team to continue with the treatment.
Discussion and Recommendations
This creates an ethical concern for the nurse that pits the patient’s agency against the family’s ER. Solving such dilemmas involves ethical and sensitive considerations in decision-making.
Recommendations to address this dilemma include:
- Ensuring effective communication between all stakeholders, including Sarah, her daughter, and the healthcare workers involved (Ernstmeyer & Christman, 2021).
- The future care plan also involved educating the community on advanced care planning and ethics, such as autonomy and informed consent.
- The patient should call on a hospital ethics committee or a chaplain to intervene and sort the issue out (Mallah et al., 2019).
- Ensuring Sarah has adequate and appropriate advance directives that could be implemented in her final days.
- Providing spiritual and psychological support, that is, spending time with the family and helping them through their difficult period (Lowey, 2020).
In conclusion, based on this study, it can be seen that ethical issues and decisions are hardly lacking in nurses’ working processes, as they are commonplace in end-of-life care. The case study exposes how communication, ethical decision-making, and compassion can help solve such dilemmas. I found it incredibly useful to adapt to these approaches by demonstrating patient compassion, self-governance, and moral principles to perform as a professional nurse in any complex scenario.
Offload drafts to field expert
Our writers can refine your work for better clarity, flow, and higher originality in 3+ hours.
Match with writerReferences
- Ernstmeyer, K., & Christman, E. (2021). Chapter 11 Comfort. Www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; Chippewa Valley Technical College. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK591809/
- Lowey, S. E. (2020). Management of Severe Pain in Terminally Ill Patients at Home. Home Healthcare Now, 38(1), 8–15. https://doi.org/10.1097/nhh.0000000000000826
- Mallah, H., Mousa, R., Fadl, N. B., Musmar, S., Ball, S., & Nugent, K. (2019). Pain Severity and Adequacy of Pain Management in Terminally Ill Patients with Cancer: An Experience from North Palestine. Indian Journal of Palliative Care, 25(4), 494–500. https://doi.org/10.4103/IJPC.IJPC_39_19
