The nurse owes the same duties to self as to others, including
the responsibility to preserve integrity and safety, to maintain
competence, and to continue personal and professional growth.
5.1 Moral self-respect
5.2 Professional growth and maintenance of competence
5.3 Wholeness of character
5.4 Preservation of integrity
5.1 Moral self-respect
Moral respect accords moral worth and dignity to all human beings irrespective of
their personal attributes or life situation. Such respect extends to oneself as well;
the same duties that we owe to others we owe to ourselves. Self-regarding duties
refer to a realm of duties that primarily concern oneself and include professional
growth and maintenance of competence, preservation of wholeness of character,
and personal integrity.
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5.2 Professional growth and maintenance of competence
Though it has consequences for others, maintenance of competence and ongoing
professional growth involves the control of one’s own conduct in a way that is
primarily self-regarding. Competence affects one’s self-respect, self-esteem, professional
status, and the meaningfulness of work. In all nursing roles, evaluation
of one’s own performance, coupled with peer review, is a means by which nursing
practice can be held to the highest standards. Each nurse is responsible for participating
in the development of criteria for evaluation of practice and for using
those criteria in peer and self-assessment.
Continual professional growth, particularly in knowledge and skill, requires
a commitment to lifelong learning. Such learning includes, but is not limited to,
continuing education, networking with professional colleagues, self-study, professional
reading, certification, and seeking advanced degrees. Nurses are required to
have knowledge relevant to the current scope and standards of nursing practice,
changing issues, concerns, controversies, and ethics. Where the care required is
outside the competencies of the individual nurse, consultation should be sought
or the patient should be referred to others for appropriate care.
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5.3 Wholeness of character
Nurses have both personal and professional identities that are neither entirely
separate, nor entirely merged, but are integrated. In the process of becoming a
professional, the nurse embraces the values of the profession, integrating them with
personal values. Duties to self involve an authentic expression of one’s own moral
point-of-view in practice. Sound ethical decision-making requires the respectful
and open exchange of views between and among all individuals with relevant interests.
In a community of moral discourse, no one person’s view should automatically
take precedence over that of another. Thus the nurse has a responsibility to
express moral perspectives, even when they differ from those of others, and even
when they might not prevail.
This wholeness of character encompasses relationships with patients. In situations
where the patient requests a personal opinion from the nurse, the nurse is
generally free to express an informed personal opinion as long as this preserves
the voluntariness of the patient and maintains appropriate professional and moral
boundaries. It is essential to be aware of the potential for undue influence attached
to the nurse’s professional role. Assisting patients to clarify their own values in
reaching informed decisions may be helpful in avoiding unintended persuasion.
In situations where nurses’ responsibilities include care for those whose personal
attributes, condition, lifestyle or situation is stigmatized by the community and
are personally unacceptable, the nurse still renders respectful and skilled care.
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5.4 Preservation of integrity
Integrity is an aspect of wholeness of character and is primarily a self-concern of
the individual nurse. An economically constrained healthcare environment presents
the nurse with particularly troubling threats to integrity. Threats to integrity
may include a request to deceive a patient, to withhold information, or to falsify
records, as well as verbal abuse from patients or coworkers. Threats to integrity
also may include an expectation that the nurse will act in a way that is inconsistent
with the values or ethics of the profession, or more specifically a request that is in
direct violation of the Code of Ethics. Nurses have a duty to remain consistent with
both their personal and professional values and to accept compromise only to the
degree that it remains an integrity-preserving compromise. An integrity-preserving
compromise does not jeopardize the dignity or well-being of the nurse or others.
Integrity-preserving compromise can be difficult to achieve, but is more likely to
be accomplished in situations where there is an open forum for moral discourse
and an atmosphere of mutual respect and regard.
Where nurses are placed in situations of compromise that exceed acceptable
moral limits or involve violations of the moral standards of the profession, whether
in direct patient care or in any other forms of nursing practice, they may express
their conscientious objection to participation. Where a particular treatment, intervention,
activity, or practice is morally objectionable to the nurse, whether intrinsically
so or because it is inappropriate for the specific patient, or where it may
jeopardize both patients and nursing practice, the nurse is justified in refusing to
participate on moral grounds. Such grounds exclude personal preference, prejudice,
convenience, or arbitrariness. Conscientious objection may not insulate the nurse
against formal or informal penalty. The nurse who decides not to take part on the
grounds of conscientious objection must communicate this decision in appropriate
ways. Whenever possible, such a refusal should be made known in advance and in
time for alternate arrangements to be made for patient care. The nurse is obliged to
provide for the patient’s safety, to avoid patient abandonment, and to withdraw only
when assured that alternative sources of nursing care are available to the patient.
Where patterns of institutional behavior or professional practice compromise
the integrity of all its nurses, nurses should express their concern or conscientious
objection collectively to the appropriate body or committee. In addition, they should
express their concern, resist, and seek to bring about a change in those persistent
activities or expectations in the practice setting that are morally objectionable to
nurses and jeopardize either patient or nurse well-being.
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