[Answered]: NURS2025: Legal and Ethical Considerations in…

NURS2025: Legal and Ethical Considerations in Nursing Case Summary A 50-year-old patient with a history of bowel cancer and a permanent colostomy is admitted for surgery due to a bowel obstruction. The patient is crying and when talking to the patient, you (as a nursing student) discover that the patient hasn’t received any analgesia for the past 24 hours. On further questioning, the patient tells you that they have reported having pain and has asked for pain relief several times, but the nursing staff have not returned with any analgesia despite these requests. __________________________________________________________________________ Assessment Tasks Apply Steps 1-3 of the Decision-Making Framework (McDonald and Then, 2019) Task 1 Step 1 – Identify issues and collect information • Identify the problem, is it ethical distress, ethical dilemma or ethical violation? • Who is involved, state the relevant stakeholders and their interest in the problem? • Gather the relevant facts Gather necessary information to assist with decision- making – medical and contextual information Task 2 Step 2 – Evaluate the issues • Ethical principles – which are relevant? identify and apply relevant bioethical principles/ identify and apply relevant elements (and sub-elements) of the ICN Code of ethics for nurses/ identify and apply relevant standards (and sub- standards) of the NMBA Registered Nurse standards for practice • Legal principles – what does the law say? -identify and apply relevant legal principles/ identify and apply relevant sections (and sub-sections of legislation)/ identify and apply relevant common law principles Task 3 Step 3 – Action – what to do in practice • Identify options -identify how you could respond as the nursing student • Justify decision -Use the ethical and legal principles (from step 2) to investigate and interrogate each potential option/ identify and apply relevant principles (and sub-principles) from the NMBA Code of Conduct for nurses • Make a decision and take responsibility -Clearly state your decision and why.