ESSAY: Analyzing an Ethical Decision

Review literature for moral/ethical issues encountered by a PMHNP.
Select one of the articles you found that was published within the last 5 years to use as a focus for this assignment.
Write a 2-page paper in which you do the following:
Summarize the moral/ethical issue in the article (no more than 1 paragraph).
Describe the moral and ethical dilemmas surrounding the issue.
Analyze the ethical issue and compare them to the state health laws and regulations in your state.
Outline the process of ethical decision making you would use to address this ethical dilemma.

ANSWER

PMHNF nurses play an important role in the clinical setting such as; executive role, and in education sector owing to their varying degree of influence and involvement in the entire clinical practice. The professional role of PMHNF requires them to identify ethical conflicts whenever they arise and be able to serve as mediators in cases involving families, patients or nurses who are confronted with ethical dilemmas (Buppert, 2015). With the increasing expansion of nursing education, research has identified that more than twenty-five percent of physician assistants and nursing practitioners find themselves in the state of isolation when faced with ethical clinical decisions (Hamric et al. 2014). In fact, the research estimates that more than 68% of these nurses have expressed interest or need for advanced training on how to handle ethical dilemma (Nora, Zoboli & Vieira, 2015). This paper focuses on analyzing ethical dilemma among the nurses and proposes the appropriate ethical decision making that will help to address the issue.  

A proper understanding of ethical theories and constructs in paramount to nurses since it helps them to address complex health issues alongside managing ethical constraints XXXXXXXXXXXXX moral/ethical issues of concern, in this case, is whether a nurse practitioner has ethical or moral right to prescribe medication or to offer medical treatment to families and friends. There is a variance of approach where some nurses prescribe and treat without hesitation while others articulate to no family or friends XXXXXXXXXXXXX such, questions are raised on what one should do and the legality of such an action. 

There is a widespread of self-prescription and family treatment among the medical XXXXXXXXXXXXX fifty-eight to eight two percent of nurses in the healthcare sector reports treatment of non-patients (MidlevelU: The Online Hub for Midlevels, 2013). However, legal implications of treating a friend or a family member vary across the states. According to Kaplan (2017), multiple XXXXXXXXXXXXX vary and therefore create a state of nebulous since it leaves a gray area among the healthcare providers. For instance, the Georgia Medical Board articulates and declares that it is unprofessional for a medical practitioner to XXXXXXXXXXXXXcontrolled substances for the immediate family members such XXXXXXXXXXXXX and spouse and this also prohibits subscriptions that are meant for personal use (Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency, 2018)….