Ethical and Legal Responsibilities

As nurses gain more responsibilities in their role they are going to be faced with more ethical and legal issues. As a patient's advocate we are always trying to do what we feel is in the best interest of the patient. This puts us in a situation where we can easily be faced with ethical decisions. I am grateful that there are ethical committees set up to help solves these issues. An ethical committee will be able to come in with an unbiased opinion, and see things in a different light than the other parties that are involved.

The main thing that I learned from our class discussion on ethics is that there is not a clear right and wrong when it comes to ethics. It is a very gray line, and what one person thinks is ethical another person may not is ethical. It is sometimes a very touchy subject, and must be approached carefully.