Description
Advanced Practice Nurses motivated by beneficence initiate policy change, conduct research, provide testimony, compose position statements, and act in many ways that illustrate tough decisions. An important aspect of decision-making is preserving moral courage and preventing moral distress associated with controversial practice situations. Describe a difficult situation that you have encountered in your Advanced practice role and how using the AACN’s 4 A’s, Lachman’s CODE mneumonic or The West Virginia University Health Science Center Process of Ethical Decision-making could have assisted you with a better outcome. You will need to research these tools and reference the source of information that you researched. Please make sure that this is a substantive academic discussion. You will need to describe the situation and then show side by side how if you knew about one of these tools how the outcome could have been different. If this discussion is just a paragraph long you will receive an incomplete. Please use below to answer the question but make it substantial. References should be APA including in-text citation Situation answer: I have encountered some situations that were morally incorrect and could have been resolved in a different manner. One situation was when a patient was admitted to the hospital for pancreatitis. She would ask for pain medication around the clock along with Benadryl. She would become upset and violent when it was not time for her medication. I was told to call the on-call doctor for the night to which he ordered a one-time dose of pain medication. Using the 4 A’s, ask, affirm, assess, and act, that could have been handle differently. I would first ask myself if I am feeling symptoms or showing signs of moral suffering in order to become aware that moral distress is present. Suffering can present itself in physical, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual ways. At the time I felt angry because a medication was prescribed for severe pain when the patient did not depict severe pain. I was also fearful because narcotics can have a huge impact on the body. I would then affirm my distress to make a commitment to myself to address my moral distress. I could have gone on to talk to my charge nurse, supervisor or director about the situation and validate the anger and fear that I was feeling. Next, I would assess with a goal of creating an action plan. This includes identifying the source of my distress, determining the severity of my distress and readiness to act. The patient’s safety was ultimately the source of my distress. Having too much of a narcotic can alter the patient both mentally and physically. The severity of my distress was a 5 on a scale of 1-5. My readiness to act is on a 4 based on the readiness self-assessment barometer. In the act phase, I would make a change to have the courage to take the attitude of the patient and understand where they may be coming from. I would also make a change on how narcotics is prescribed to patients when they already have medications order. This will ensure patient safety and save the nurse and doctor from any threats to their hard-earned licenses.
