1. Ethics and Legal Issues
Ethical
and bioethical
issues
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

2. Ethical and Legal Issues Introduction
Ethics and Legal Issues
Ethical and Legal Issues Introduction
As a member of the health care team, the nurse aide will frequently be faced with ethical and legal decisions that govern his or her actions.
A knowledge of ethical standards, resident’s rights and legal issues are important for the protection of nurse aides, employers, and residents.
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

3. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
Ethics
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

4. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
Objectives
5.0 Define ethics.
5.1 List at least six basic rules of ethics for the nurse aide.
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

5. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
Ethics
Discipline concerned with right or wrong conduct
Guides to moral behavior
Making choices or judgments
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

6. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards
Show respect for each resident as an individual
Understand the limits of role
Perform only acts for which adequately prepared
Perform acts only within legal scope of nurse aide
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

7. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards (continued)
Carry out assignments to best of ability
Be loyal:
Maintain a positive attitude toward institution that employs you
Support co-workers
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

8. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards (continued)
Be responsible citizen at all times
Respect others
Respect values that differ from yours
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

9. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
Objective
5.1.2 Identify the kind of information that should be kept confidential.
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

10. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards (continued)
Resident information should be kept confidential
Discuss only in appropriate places
Discuss only with proper people
Refer questions from residents about their condition to supervisor
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

11. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards (continued)
Resident information should be kept confidential (continued)
Refer questions about resident’s death to supervisor
Respect personal religious beliefs
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

12. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards (continued)
Respect privacy of others:
while dressing
while performing personal hygiene
during examination or treatment
during visits with clergy
during visits with spouse or significant other
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

13. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards (continued)
Put resident’s needs ahead of your own
Be sincere, honest and trustworthy in performance of duties
caring and concerned
“golden rule”
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

14. Why Employ Ethical Principles?
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

15. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
Objective
5.1.3 Explain why nurse aides should not accept monetary tips for a health care service.
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

16. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards (continued)
Do not accept monetary tips
Residents are paying for service
You are paid to provide service
Do not discriminate regardless of race, creed, color, age, financial resources
Provide care based on need
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

17. Nurse Aide Ethical Standards (continued)
Do not accept monetary tips (continued)
Display tactful and courteous refusal of tips
Display continued desire to be helpful
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

18. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
Husted’s Formal Ethical Decision Making Model
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19. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
Age Appropriate
Behavior
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

20. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
Objective
5.2 Demonstrate skills supporting age appropriate behavior by encouraging the resident to make personal choices, and by providing and reinforcing other resident’s dignity.
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

21. Age Appropriate Behavior
Dependent elderly residents are not children
If resident seen as a child
If resident treated as a child
Then resident behaves as a child
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

22. Age Appropriate Behavior (continued)
Residents are treated as adults in manner appropriate to person’s age
Age-appropriate considerations:
Recreational activities
Social activities
Style of dress
Hair style and grooming
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

23. Age Appropriate Behavior (continued)
Guidelines for Nurse Aide
Address resident in a dignified way
Listen to what resident has to say
Converse with resident in an adult manner
Respect resident’s privacy
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

24. Age Appropriate Behavior (continued)
Guidelines for Nurse Aide (continued)
Don’t ignore or humor resident
Explain what care you are going to give
Promote resident independence
Treat resident as you would want to be treated
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

25. Age Appropriate Behavior (continued)
Guidelines for Nurse Aide (continued)
Encourage resident to make choices:
select clothing to wear
select books to read
select television programs to watch
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

26. Age Appropriate Behavior (continued)
Guidelines for Nurse Aide (continued)
Encourage resident to make choices:
select food and nourishments
select activities of interest
select friends
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

27. Age Appropriate Behavior (continued)
Guidelines for Nurse Aide (continued)
Recognize value of past experience
Praise age appropriate accomplishments
Encourage adult behavior
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5

28. Ethics and Legal Issues
Bioethics - what is it
Bioethics is a specific discipline that probes the reasoning behind our moral life within the context of the life sciences; how we decide what is morally right or wrong bioscience
Ethics is different from morals. Ethics tries to probe the reasoning behind our moral life, by examining and analyzing the thinking used to justify our moral choices and actions in particular situations
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29. Ethics and Legal Issues
Bioethics – what is it
Bioethics is normative ethics applied to the practice of science and medicine. It falls under the general group of applied and professional ethics
It is predicated on an assumption that some solutions to the ethical problems that arise in science and medicine are more moral than others and that these solutions can be arrived at by moral reasoning and reflections
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30. Ethics and Legal Issues
Bioethics – what is it
It is a branch of knowledge like mathematics, and thinking in this field is not wholly different from thinking in those other fields, however it cannot be reduced to them.
Bioethical conclusions cannot be unambiguously proved like mathematical theorems
Research ethics or more specifically health research ethics is the branch of bioethics that deals with issues relating to the ethical conduct of research
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31. DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5
THANK YOU!
DHSR Approved Curriculum-Unit 5