Abstract:
Nurses are known to have “big hearts,” but in order to fully understand their own
thoughts and actions in practice, nurses need to develop their minds. Nursing ethics
deserves recognition because all nurses need an understanding of ethical concepts in
order to recognize ethical issues and dilemmas. The ideal ways of acting in nursing
should be universal so that care for patients is consistently exemplary. Nurses need to
learn to support their beliefs and ideas with sound reasoning to understand, relieve, or
prevent their own moral distress.
This paper briefly examines the history of nursing and nursing ethics, the
dynamics of the nurse-physician relationship historically and in the modern era, the shift
of the nurse from a helper into an autonomous professional within the healthcare system,
and exploration of the role of the nurse as an “advocate.” The ethical theories and
approaches used were virtue ethics, deontological ethics, utilitarian ethics, the principlism
approach, and the ethic of care approach. Case studies were then used to highlight the
nurse-patient relationship, the nurse-physician relationship, and the lessons that could be
drawn for to help the nurse in practice.
