Introduction
Moral courage is a significant trait for all healthcare professionals as they often face ethical issues that need to be addressed correctly. However, moral courage is critical for administrators because they inspire and guide their subordinates and create a supportive work environment by their example. However, medical institutions often provide conditions in which it is difficult or even harmful to show courage and resist wrong decisions, which hinders administrators’ work and quality patient service. Therefore, this paper will consider the importance and characteristics of administrators’ moral courage and the means to improve ethical decision-making in healthcare.
Main body
Managers are leaders who create a work environment and maintain regular nursing interactions. Connor (2019) defines an administrator as a registered nurse who guides and influences others’ work, providing a shared vision for the organization. Consequently, an administrator nurse’s primary responsibilities can be both direct patient care, guidance, and management of organizational issues that improve the quality of their work. For this reason, moral courage is a necessary trait for an administrator’s job as she or he often has to deal with situations requiring an ethical decision that is the best for the patient and employees. Moral courage, in this case, is the skills to resist making decisions that are harmful to the interests of the patient, since they are the main priority of any medical professional. However, in some cases, the hospitals’ organizational culture and tradition hinder making an ethical decision. For example, reporting a colleague’s violation to management requires moral courage as this step can ruin the person’s relationship with colleagues; however, this decision is correct for the patients’ health. If the hospital management usually does not pay attention to such violations, or organizational culture labels such a reporting as mean, then the manifestation of moral courage is difficult. Hence, cultural organization problems are a major obstacle to the moral courage of the administrator and employees.
Alex Wubbels’ example demonstrates an example of an administrator showing moral courage and a problem in the organizational culture. Wubbels refused to test the blood without the consent of the driver, who was involved in the accident, because it was against the rules, and she was arrested for it (NBC News, 2017). She showed courage in confronting the police officer and acting by the rules. However, none of the staff tried to protect and help her, although she was innocent, which demonstrates the lack of moral courage of other employees in general. In this case, the hospital could focus more on employee training that improves their moral courage and increased awareness of their rights. In general, any medical institution should direct efforts to create an organizational culture in which the correct ethical decision for patients’ interests would be put in the first place. For example, the introduction of a Code of Ethics for nurses, physicians, and other medical staff into hospital policy promotes moral decision-making and could act as a legal argument in case of disputes (Connor, 2019). Thus, combinations of positive organizational culture and written rules can promote moral decision-making by administrators, nurses, physicians, and other hospital staff.
Conclusion
In conclusion, moral courage is a critical factor for the administrator as it is essential for everyday decision-making regarding the interests of staff and patients. The administrator also creates a work environment and inspires other employees to be courageous and make moral decisions. The main task of healthcare management is to maintain this environment through formal official policies and staff training to ensure the best services.
References
Connor, J. (2020). Professional moral courage in nurse executive leadership: A competency framework. New York, NY: Springer.
NBC News (2017). Utah nurse arrested for refusing to give patient’s blood to police | NBC Nightly News [Video file]. Web.