Introduction
Different people in the world share and differ in their decision-making. Most of the Ethical decisions made by people are influenced by the factors that surround them. In most cases, their decisions are dependent on their feelings. This does not mean that all decisions are according to their feelings; feelings only influence our decision-making ability. Another, among other factors that affect our decision-making, is the working environment: in this, we have the work ethics that depend on the organizational culture of an organization. Generally, people have the image of ethics they prefer to see and follow, but may follow them or not. Governments, organizations, communities also have their ethical standards and worth mentioning is a religion that focuses on high ethical standards. This paper will attempt to describe the professional moral compass of an individual in the nursing field.
Ethics has had various notions with various peoples and cultures giving their descriptions of it. Some people end up mixing it with their feelings thinking that whatever they feel is ethics. It is imperative to note that ethics are the standards that relate to our behaviors and inform us how we should present ourselves or act in the various situations we encounter. This may be in our interactions with friends, workmates, and in a professional environment, government, among others. Another notion that has been linked to ethics is religion; from the definition of ethics, we can clearly understand that religion like feelings, guard our decision making which may not be ethically correct in some lines, or fully in the context of ethics. Cultural norms just as religion and feeling are not ethics, cultures are diverse and some cultural norms are completely out of ethical context, this only proves that ethics is not cultural norms. An example is, doing what the Romans do when with them which is not ethically working, so norms affect our decisions which later define our ethics, but only if we follow them. It can therefore be said that ethics is rather ambiguous since even identifying the right ethical standards will require their basis and not everyone will agree with that basis. That’s why every institution, organization, individuals, religion, culture, defines their ethical standards to be followed (Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, 2009, par. 1-7).
Values and Nursing Practice
Nursing, like other professionals, has ethics that guide its development and working principles. The philosophical foundations are essential to the building of any discipline and this goes to nursing too. Nursing philosophy starts with the conceptualization of man since it is a field that interacts and attends to their health care needs. These philosophies touch on the purpose of a man’s life, why they value health, impacts of illness, the definition of health, and whether it is a right in relation to the person’s life and the Nurse’s social obligations. These philosophical questions define ethics in a given health institution. Each individual guarded by his/her culture and spiritual values will have different beliefs regarding the philosophies at personal levels.
Cultural values like the respect of other persons are in the context of nursing philosophy this helps in building professional nursing practice as the patients are highly regarded. Religious values highly regard human life, and believe that it is given by God and should be saved at all levels; this is in context with the nursing philosophy which begins at human conceptualization and does whatever possible to save lives. It also helps in planting a firm nursing ethical practice when dealing with the patients regarding the importance of their lives (Fruechting, 2010, par. 1-6).
Values are those beliefs that may be good or bad that are held so special to a particular community or culture. They change from community to community and vary in different individuals. Morals refer to those behavior people are used to, in their societies, these also change with societies. Nursing philosophy deals with the maintenance of human health. Some cultural values may conflict with the professional ethics of nursing; these may include the response to the opposite sex, for example, some societies do not allow attending to the opposite sex in isolation, especially if the service requires the other to take off her/his clothes, this conflicts with the nursing philosophy in which you can attend to any sex regarding any area of his/her body. Even religious beliefs do conflict with the nursing philosophy; some sectors believe that when one is sick, he/she should not go to hospital but rather remain for prayers and wait for God’s healing. This conflicts with nursing ethics which gives you the right to try and save the patient’s life once diagnosed with a disease, and hence both cases create ethical dilemmas (Orans, 1996, par. 1).
Conclusion
Health care deals with the saving of lives and it is only fair, subject to debate, to pursue nursing ethics to save lives, then keep with the cultural norms that directly contradict it. Personal views are subject to corrections since everything we see or hear affects our decisions and changes our thoughts. It is therefore imperative that personal views are shared with an open mind, so as to keep to the ethical standards required of us in professionalism. Nursing philosophies should be followed at all times regardless of the other factors that conflict with them unless the issue is clearly against the very foundation of human conceptualization.
Reference List
Fruechting P. (2010). Developing a Personal Nursing Philosophy. Nursing Philosophies …ItMatters.Web.
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. (2009). Framework for Thinking Ethically. Santa ClaraUniversity.Web.
Orans P. L. (1996). What are Values? Pinetree. Web.