Professionalism:
● 4 aims of nursing:
- Promote health
- Prevent illness
- Restore health
- Facilitate coping
Remember by: Profession Practice Requires Focus
● Accountability: state of being “answerable”; acceptance
of responsibility
Responsibility vs. Accountability
- What you are supposed - “Did you do it?”
to do - Consequences for
- Future oriented actions
● Advocacy: supporting, defending or assisting in
another’s cause; process of acting on behalf of others
Core attributes:
- Safeguard a pt’s autonomy
- Act on behalf of pts
- Championing social justice
Remember: S.A.C.
,Ethics:
● Nurse’s code of ethics: foundational framework guiding
nurses in their professional conduct; created by
American Nurse Association
Guides moral + professional behaviour.
● Nurse’s ethical responsibilities:
- Examine your own values
- Do not impose your own values on a client.
● Bioethics: ethics in healthcare
- Autonomy: right to self-determination
- Nonmaleficence: do no harm
- Beneficence: do something in pt’s best interest
- Justice: treat everyone fairly
- Fidelity: keep promises
- Veracity: honesty; always tell the truth
, Legal Issues & Health Policy:
● Nurse practice act: foundational legal framework
governing nursing within each state
○ THESE ARE LAW.
○ Goal - ensure pt’s best outcome
○ a state law that defines the scope of nursing practice
and protects the public by establishing standards for
nursing education and licensure
○ Each state has its own NPA.
Defines legal scope.
● Standards of care: guidelines that provide a foundation as to
how a nurse should act and what they should and should not do
in their professional capacity
○ Established by Joint Commision, ANA, and NLN
○ Determine what a nurse should or should not do
○ Describe what responsibilities nurse is accountable
for
Establish expected outcomes.
● Credentialing