Assignment Overview

In this written assignment, you will write a 250-350 word paper (excluding title page and reference page) discussing the ethical issues and nurses role/responsibilities related to the below case study on patient self-determination.

Step 1.  Review the case study below.

CASE: A nurse is caring for an elderly woman with end-stage cardiac disease who has just arrested. There are no advance directives in the chart, but the patients daughters have agreed with the physicians suggestion to initiate life support. After the nurse anesthetist administers the neuromuscular blocker that paralyzes the respiratory muscles to facilitate the use of the ventilator, the patients daughters decide they do not want her to be continued on life support. The physician then issues an order to discontinue the ventilator. When the nurses protest because the neuromuscular blocker has just been administered, the physician states that the patient will die anyway and says he will take full responsibility for the action.

Step 2 Address the following elements.  Utilize and cite at least two scholarly sources and the course textbook.

For this case, identify and describe one ethical issue for the nurse.

Articulate the nurses role, responsibility, and potential actions should be related to the identified ethical issue.

Apply the ANA Code of Ethics with Interpretative Statements to the ethical issue.  (Specify provision and explain why it applies to this ethical dilemma).

Apply Texas Advance Directives regulations to the ethical issue.

Identify and discuss briefly one legal implication for the nurse in this case.