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Death with Dignity

         I feel that the baseline knowledge I have of death with dignity is very little as the only time I remember learning about it was in ethics class freshman year. From what I do remember is that it is essentially the belief that terminally ill patients should have the right to voluntarily take their own life by a medical professional. While this can be a very controversial topic for people, I find myself agreeing with the death with dignity act. I feel that if a person who has a terminal illness, they should have the option to go out peacefully on their own terms than potentially being miserable waiting for the illness to take over. However, I do see why people are against death with dignity. The idea of having a doctor helping a patient take their own life is a very strange idea to wrap one’s head around.

            I think that death with dignity directly challenges the ethical principle of do no harm. In the case of death with dignity the health care team is doing the opposite of that. However, I think that as health care providers we need to make sure that the patient’s needs are being met. If that patient decides that they truly want to go through with it the health care team needs to respect the decision. The process to get the prescription is not as simple as it may seem, which I think that if a patient is able to go through the steps, then it is a decision that they fell strongly about. While the line becomes blurred about doing no harm to the patient with death with dignity, I believe that we as health care professionals need to make sure that the patient is getting the level of care that they want. 

       Before this presentation I never really thought about the idea that people’s medical records are all available electronically. When it comes to nursing, I think having the patient’s Electronic Health Records makes the job of the nurse slightly easier. Especially when it comes to doing an admission. A nurse is responsible for asking a new patient about the patient’s past medical history or surgical history on the patient and having the electronic health record allows the nurse to see if there have been any changes among admissions. I think that accessing these records makes it easier for the nurse to give the best care possible for their patient as well. Having that complete health history and previous care plans can help the nurse to be able what to know what the patient’s baseline is or what interventions worked for the patient in the past. Looking back at the history of the HIE, it has made a lot of progress in making sure that it is expanding to more and more places. This allows for more nurses and providers to be able to access and update patient’s health records, update any changes to the care plan following discharge and avoiding readmittance.

       When it comes to my practice as a nurse, I will use the information we learned in the presentation to make sure I am keeping the patient’s medical record as up to date as possible. Again, I think this will also allow me to make sure I am giving the patient the best possible care I can. I think knowing the importance of keeping a patient’s medical record up to date as possible will make sure that I am charting everything I need to. The electronic health record is a very useful tool that benefits not just the nurse or other health care providers, but the patient as well.

1. Demonstrate evidence of clinical reasoning and clinical judgment in the plan of care for the individuals, families, and communities across the health spectrum and lifespan.
2. Demonstrate the use of data and resources that impact health outcomes of vulnerable populations.
3. Apply concepts of nursing theory and leadership principles in the planning and evaluation of care for individuals, families, and communities in multiple settings/patient populations.
4. Apply principles of reflective practice, appreciative inquiry, and therapeutic communication across the spectrum of health in multiple settings/patient populations.
5. Integrate the moral, ethical, and legal tenets inherent in the formation of professional nursing values including the role of self-care in for individuals, families and communities.  

From working on this team project, I learned that the EBP process requires a lot of hard work and collaboration from a team in order to get results to the question at hand. Some skills we learned was how to identify which resources are the best to use and how to cite these resources in text and in a resource page. As well as being able to identify key points in the articles we found. I think the most important skill we learned and practiced in the class was being able to work as a team productively and efficiently. Making sure every team member does their job and do it correctly can be difficult but I feel that this course helped us prepare for that challenge. The teamwork skills we learned will also transcend beyond just EBP and into our clinical practices. Being able to work together as a team is a very important skill for a nurse to possess. Nurses need to be able to collaborate with different aspects of a health care team every day in order to present the best care possible for the patient. 

After completing the CITI assignments and watching Ms Ever’s boys, I think that my assumptions on ethics have not really changed that much. I think that the nurses is to provide continuous care to the best of their ability to their patients. In regard to the movie I thought that Ms. Ever was doing that in the beginning. She made sure that the efforts of the study were truly for the benefit of her patients and the overall population. However, once she knew that her patients were purposely being neglected proper treatment I felt that is when she needed to make a stand and say something. 

Because of the actions of Ms Ever and the other members of the Tuskegee experiment, nurses and anyone else that may be involved in a research of any sorts have been able to learn valuable information regarding ethics in research. Looking back at the mistakes and the harm made from the actions of Tuskegee has allowed for constant improvement of how research is done and carried out. I think that it has provided a baseline on what is now considered ethical as a standard practice of research and what the limits of what a nurse would find to be ethical. In the case of Ms Ever she knew that she had an ethical conflict by not providing the patients with the proper treatment but didn’t want to interfere with the study, moving forward I think that nurses now have been able to make sure that their ethical beliefs won’t have to be compromised for the study. 

When it comes to doing any research I feel that the nurse plays an equal role to anyone else conducting the research. One of the most important roles that I think a nurse will have is making sure that the patient is still receiving adequate care that does not interfere with the study. The point of conducting research is to try to figure out if the way things are being done is the best way to do those things. If the nurse is expected to do things one way to gather valuable information then the nurse should continue to do so, given the nurse is fulfilling all of their responsibilities to the patient. However, if a nurse feels what they are doing is wrong or unethical I feel that they have a responsibility to report the issue they have. Once again a nurse’s responsibility is to make sure a patient is receiving the best and proper treatment that the nurse can give. So, if the nurse finds something to be unethical that is when they need to say something. 

After going through evidence appraisal and synthesis, I was unaware at how successful cultural competency was in the clinical setting. The results from our articles have shown that there has been positive results in a clinical setting regarding care for clients when they have been given culturally competent care. In regard to incorporating this concept into my future as a nurse, I feel that it is an important concept. Being culturally competent is an important skill in every day life as well as being a nurse, but in nursing it has been shown to increase the quality of care. So as a nurse the goal should be to provide the best care possible and based off the research done it shows that this is a way to do so. The consensus of the group was that incorporating some sort of cultural competency was important to add to care. 

Our team collaborated well for this aspect of the paper. We all made sure that each part of the paper that we needed to get done got done. This included making sure that each aspect that we did all flowed well and made it seem like it was one paper. Any issues we had we made sure to talk the issue out and made sure it was resolved before submitting the assignment.