Nurses work closely with patients, patient's families and doctors.
Nurses are trained to focus on the health and sustained welfare of patients. A nurse may face an ethical conflict when limitations are placed on care by patient's family, a hospital or the patient himself. Ethical dilemmas are often particularly troublesome in a health care setting where decisions may mean the difference between life and death.
Different Values
Most nurses share certain common values, such as their respect for patient's needs, belief in high quality care and a sense of empathy with patients conditions. They can find these values challenged when patients, or patients' families, do not share these values. This can occur when poor families have to consider the cost of care over the health of a patient or abroad when they are working in areas that do not hold the same value of health they have. The distress nurses feel when confronted with this problem can damage their perception of their patients and lead to poor feelings about their work environment.
Different Standards
Nurses learn to uphold certain standards of care in their work. These standards include keeping their medical facility clean, well organized and free of outside contagions. Poor working conditions can challenge these standards and leave a nurse feeling undervalued or distressed. This can occur in poorer hospitals, if the facility cannot afford to uphold the nurse's standard of care, or abroad when forced to work in conditions that are suboptimal for patient health. This distress can leave nurses feeling like they are working against their own facility as much as they are working for their patient's health.
Different Conditions
Nurses, who work abroad, find themselves working under a system of health conditions very different from their native country. This may include restrictions on allowable care and countries or economic realities that impose limitations for some patients. While nurses at home have an established medical tradition they are familiar with and taught under, nurses working abroad face the differences between the medical traditions of their native country and the traditions of the region wherein they are working. This distress can leave them feeling helpless and unable to treat their patients in the manner they feel is right.
Resolution
A nurse must be able to address and resolve these ethical conflicts in order to perform their job and maintain their own values. The nurse must understand those decisions made beyond their control are not their responsibility and to take control of those decisions that are theirs to make. This involves accepting those differences and separating themselves from the responsibility of other people's decisions, while maintaining her own respect for her values and the responsibility that those individual values place on her.
