Scenario: Mr. Con Fused has been an employee at Regional Hospital for the past five years. His employment there was recently terminated. The reason for the termination was: Inability to follow instructions.
Scenario
Mr. Con Fused has been an employee at Regional Hospital for the past five years. His employment there was recently terminated. The reason for the termination was: Inability to follow instructions. However, Regional has adopted an “at-will” policy. So in reality, no reason has to be given for the termination. Never the less, Mr. Fused was very upset at his termination….so upset, that he went to the media with his story.
Scenario for Post 1
You work for the human resources department at Regional. The hospital attorney is preparing for a news conference regarding the termination of Mr. Fused. In an effort to help the attorney, you draft justifications for an “at-will” termination of a hospital employee. What are your reasons for supporting this policy? Your job is to convince the public that this is a necessary and useful policy.
Scenario for Post 2
Now you work for a public advocacy group that has decided to help Mr. Fused. You hold a news conference in response to the hospital’s news conference. What flaws do you find in the hospital’s position? Why is “at-will” wrong for the medical industry? Be sure to read through posts of your fellow students, then select the “hospital” post that interests you the most.
NURSING ETHICS
The biologic revolution has brought about radical changes in health care. It has
produced corresponding biomedical ethics problems that face healthcare professionals as well as lay people making healthcare decisions. These developments have affected nursing practice dramatically. The nurse has long been the healthcare professional in closest contact with the patient, often perceiving ethical and other value differences among the patient, the physician, and other parties. Increasingly, nurses recognize that they have the responsibility to be active, participating members of the healthcare team, initiating actions when ethical questions emerge.
In the 1970s, the use of case studies in medical ethics became an important method for helping healthcare professionals prepare for their increasing involvement in ethical choices related to health care. In 1977, Robert M. Veatch prepared a collection published as Case Studies in Medical Ethics. That collection covered medical ethics very broadly, emphasizing medical ethical decisions made by the entire range of healthcare professionals and lay people.
Although only some of those cases involved nurses, it was clear that nurses face unique biomedical ethical problems.
They stand in special role relations with patients, families, physicians, and other members of the healthcare team.
The two authors of the earlier editions of this volume, having worked together for many years, realized that a special collection of cases focusing specifically on the ethical problems facing nurses was needed. The first edition of Case Studies in
Nursing Ethics, published in 1987, was the result. Second and third editions followed in 2000 and 2006, respectively.
A major change for this fourth edition is the addition of a third editor—Carol Taylor, a PhD with a concentration in bioethics, she is also a scholar with much experience on the faculty of a school of nursing. At the same time, Sara T. Fry, who was the senior editor of the previous editions, has taken a less active role in this edition. She had originally supplied most of the cases for the earlier editions (including many that remain in this volume), and worked collaboratively in the development of the general structure
of the book and the presentation of the bioethical theory. She has reviewed the manuscript of this fourth edition, but was not directly responsible for its preparation