Nursing Case Study Assignment

Case Study Instructions

You are a nurse caring for a patient who has an extensive history of peripheral vascular disease, resulting in frequent surgeries for the purpose of revascularizing her lower extremities with the intent of avoiding amputations, if possible. This is your patient’s third surgery this year; she has been brought to your step-down unit for postoperative recovery. While implementing the surgeon’s orders, you note several conditions that require the surgeon’s immediate attention. Upon calling the surgeon, he indicates that he will address these issues tomorrow. (Learning Objectives 7 and 10)

a.   Apply the nursing process to make ethical decisions in this situation.
b.   Indicate ethically relevant considerations contained within the case study.
c.   Outline the ethical problems within the case study.
d.   As a nurse advocate, how would you represent your patient?

1.  Your patient, an elderly woman who rarely has visitors, has put on her call light so that she might introduce you to her daughter. After introductions, the patient indicates that her daughter visits whenever possible, as she is frequently traveling. Out of the patient’s hearing, the daughter indicates that she intends on meeting with your director of nursing to discuss her mother’s care.

During the meeting, she indicates that her mother is the most important thing in her life, and then begins to describe her extensive recreational travel and multiple profitable real estate holdings. She is quite critical of her mother’s care and outlines a long list of nursing care that she expects to be performed by your staff, frequently emphasizing that she expects all expenses to be covered by her mother’s Medicare insurance. At the end of the meeting, she leaves her housekeeper’s phone number for staff to contact if there are questions regarding her mother’s care. (Learning Objectives 3, 7, and 10)

a.   What pertinent data can you gather based on your patient’s information?
b.   In applying the valuing process to this scenario, what does the patient’s daughter value?
c.   As the elderly woman’s nurse, what ethical issues should be addressed in this situation and how should they be addressed?
d.   How would you advocate on behalf of your patient in this situation?

Sample Solution (APA Format)

Nursing Process

Tifany

Walden University

NUR 102

22/2/2022

Introduction

The process of making ethical decisions by nurses is described as a step-by-step procedure that incorporates both professional accountability and moral aspects, such as moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and ethical behavior. Taking personal responsibility for one’s decisions and deeds is an essential component of maintaining professional accountability. Because of this, it plays an essential part in the actions that nurses take regarding ethical decisions.