Bioethical Principles In The Medical Field
When ethics in nursing concerning respect to decision making is looked at, there are various key areas that are taken into consideration. These fundamental points include; nursing values, subject ethical principles, and finally, the crucial beliefs in nursing. There are four principles when it comes to bioethics in the medical field. The first principle, respect for autonomy, deals with the ability of a nurse’s practice and allowing a patient to make his or her own decisions. The second principle, non-maleficence, or do no harm, is directly associated with a nurse’s duty to assure the patient’s safety. The third principle is, beneficence, or the duty to be of benefit to the patient. The final principle, justice, which is usually defined as fairness or equality. These four principles in biomedical ethics allows us to understand and explain which medical practices are ethical and acceptable.
Looking at nursing values in regard to bioethical principles, nurses are expected to develop values that are mainly aimed at providing the utmost best care to their patients based on ethical grounds. Having the right ethical knowledge will enable nurses the ability to carry out their function in an appropriate manner. Nurses are expected to work based on values they have decided upon for themselves. These values should form a plan that evaluates their activities and even influences their goals, strategies, and function. With that in mind, after taking the “VIA Survey of Character Strengths,” three personal virtues/character traits that I picked out were: “Humanity, Kindness,” “Fairness, equity, and justice,” and “Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence.” These character traits vocationally fit with bioethical principles, because in order to give our patients the best care, we must first appreciate the beauty and excellence that is life. This applies to non-maleficence and beneficence because if we appreciate the beauty and excellence of life, we will not cause harm to our patients and we will benefit them in any way we can. Fairness, equity, and justice goes along with the fourth biomedical ethic, justice, because it is absolutely important to treat all patients equally, no matter their ethnicity, religion, gender identity, etc. The character trait that applies to all of the bioethical principles is “Humanity, Kindness,” this is the basis of a nurse. All nurses must have humanity and kindness in order to provide the utmost best care to their patients. Without it, all four bioethical principles would be useless.
Values that I have yet to thoroughly cultivate are: “Courage, bravery”, “Teamwork, Leadership”, and “Social intelligence”. Fortunately, I am currently trying to strengthen these character traits, so I do not have to do so later on. Courage and bravery are tied to bioethical principles in that it works with all four of the ethical principles. Opportunities to choose courageous acts present themselves on a regular basis because risk is everywhere. There can be an attempt to minimizing risk by playing it safe but there are risks to yourself, to colleagues, your profession, and those you serve in not showing courage in showing up, speaking up, or practicing according to the highest standards of practice. By choosing to practice courageously, consistent with personal and professional values, will cause some discomfort to you and your career. It will also bring professional and personal fulfillment, strengthen the profession, and improve patient outcomes. You will obviously be making a difference in your daily practice and throughout your nursing career.
Teamwork and Leadership fit with the bioethical principles because in order to practice the principles effectively, the practices of collaboration and enhanced communication are needed. Social intelligence work hand in hand with teamwork, because nurses with excellent social skills work well in team settings because they are usually good at considering the ideas and opinions of everyone in the group and compromising to meet an end goal. This is an important strength because healthcare is becoming more focused on working with multiple providers to give patients the best care. All in all, personal virtues/character traits go hand in hand with bioethical principles because in order to practice the principles, one must first be in tact with their character traits including character traits one needs to cultivate. The three-character traits that “VIA Survey of Character Strengths” gave me are “Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence”, “Humanity, Kindness”, and “Fairness, equity, and justice”. The three-character traits that I had yet to cultivate were, “Courage, bravery”, “Teamwork, Leadership”, and “Social intelligence”. Looking back, the four bioethical principles; autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice work effectively with the six-character strengths mentioned. In order to give patients, the finest care, we must practice the importance of character traits and bioethical principles. If that is done, our patients will be able to feel comfortable, relaxed, and at peace in our care. As a nurse, this is, ultimately, what we want to achieve.
