Question

Consider: A newly hired nurse is assigned to the recovery room of a hospital that specializes in heart surgery. She is working there for a week when one evening a man in the recovery room is being closely monitored after surgery. The signs are not good. He recovers consciousness. The doctors inform him of the situation. They leave the recovery room. The man calls the nurse over and asks for a pen and some paper. Thinking that he might die, and do so soon ,he informs her that he needs to write a brief letter to someone. She finds pen and paper and gives it to him. He writes his note and writes the address and asks the nurse to send it out for him. She agrees. As she is taking the pen and papers back from him the recovery room supervisor enters and observes her. The supervisor calls her over and inquires as to what she was doing. When the newly hired nurse reported that she had assisted the man in writing a letter and took it to mail it for him , the supervisor responded that : "It is not your responsibility to do such things." The new nurse responded that she was simply trying to help the man and had agreed to mail the letter. The supervisor replied with: "This is not a post office!" The new nurse repeated that she was only attempting to help the man. That he might die shortly. The supervisor wrote up the new nurse for subordination. The new nurse was dismissed from the hospital as she was in her probationary period. What was the new nurse to do and why? How would someone respond to this situation using the ethical principles of: (Respond using the principles of the ethical tradition for your group. Your group is assigned according the letter that starts your last name) A-G 1. an egoist H-L 2. a rule utilitarian M-Q 3. a Kantian R- T 4. a Natural Law theorist U-Z 5. a Rawlsian?

Answer 1

People become nurses, in most cases, because they do want to help others. Helping the patient is exactly what she was doing. Going above and beyond her duty,.is her duty as a nurse. You do everything humanly possible, with in reason, to make your patients feel safe and comfortable. This task was with in reason and did make the patient feel better, as this may of been instructions to a loved one in case something happened to him.

So...the nurse supervisor has a supervisor as well. If I could not reason with my nurse supervisor, I would go to my supervisors, supervisor and explain to them what I did and why.