Essential Ethical Principles and Patient Rights in Nursing

Core Values in Nursing Practice

Courage enables us to take risks, stemming from self-confidence, experience gained in practice, and the ability to believe in others. Hope involves believing strongly that people can improve; it means believing in people and their inherent tendency toward self-realization. Confidence is vital; if care is overprotective, mutual trust fails to develop, risking the dismissal of the patient's potential and life experience. Humility recognizes that care knowledge is shared between nurse and patient, among nursing teams, and across scientific disciplines.

Essential Attributes for Effective Care

• Be: Maintain a level of self-image and self-esteem that allows one to reach out to others.
• Independence: Maintain a level of independence from the sick to address their needs objectively.
• Freedom: The person needs to be cared for and feel free to express their needs.
• Communication: Use verbal and non-verbal expression to show that the person is the core of care.

Code of Professional Conduct

• Responsibility for patients and clients.
• Liability for professional standards.
• Responsibility to colleagues.
• Professional and personal responsibility.

Fundamental Patient Rights

The following rights are essential to ethical healthcare delivery:

• Right to Autonomy: The right to be oneself and judge one's own desires. Denying this right means failing to recognize the individual.
• Right to Liberty: The right to act and pursue one's own purposes without interference.
• Right to Truth: The right to act based on an objective view of reality.
• Right to Privacy: The right to have the autonomy to make one's own decisions.
• Right to Welfare: The right to be protected from harm and to increase one's capacity for self-care.
• Right to Fidelity: The obligation to preserve and honor reached agreements.

Role of the Ethics Committee

Ethics committees provide a space for reflection for those involved in health-related issues. Their primary functions include:

• Responding to the demands of professionals, managers, and families regarding ethical dilemmas.
• Providing ethics and bioethics training or enriching existing educational programs.
• Collaborating on policy development while considering the ethical dimension.
• Training everyone involved, including families, patients, and professionals.
• Conducting prognostic studies, debates, and drafting internal hospital arrangements.
• Performing research and providing recommendations for appropriate ethical attitudes.