Week 6 moral distress and moral integrity

In Response to Sheila Collins Your posting was quite informative and can sympathize with the difficulties that the nurse in your example experienced. It is no surprise that many nurses leave facilities where they feel that their morality and ethics are being compromised. When nurses, or any healthcare worker, are faced with what amounts to moral distress it has been shown, in many studies, that it can have negative consequences, including contributing to emotional distress, like anger and frustration, healthcare workers distancing themselves from the patients, and contributing to unsafe and poorer quality of the care being received by the patients, along with decreasing job satisfaction.(Pauly, Varcoe & Storch, 2012) One key that is very important is not to “ bottle up” the moral distress that one is feeling; addressing the sources quickly will lead to better practices in dealing with the phenomena for the betterment of a strong healthcare workforce, of which nurses play a huge part.(Epstein & Delgado, 2010)
Epstein, E. G., & Delgado, S. (2010). Understanding and addressing moral distress. The Online
Journal of Issues in Nursing, 15(3), 10. Retrieved from http://www. medscape. com/viewarticle/737893_1
Pauly, B. M., Varcoe, C., & Storch, J. (2012). Framing the issues: Moral distress in health care. HEC Forum, 24(1), 1. Retrieved from http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pmc/articles/PMC3348467/
In Response to Sherry Hollinger
Ethics and morality can be such difficult to issues to address, because we live in a diverse world, with varying ideologies of what “ ethics and morality” are. In healthcare it can be even harder because it involves the lives of patients. The phenomenon of nurses leaving their positions is a serious one. According to one study 25% of nurses, as well as social workers, are experiencing “ moral distress” badly enough to consider leaving their jobs, while 40% claim that given the option they would not choose the same profession.(” Nurses want to,” 2013) Many Researchers feel that much more in-depth research is called for and there is a necessity to redefine what the goal of healthcare is; the message, “…that doing the right thing is an organizational and a political as well as an individual responsibility, is one that needs to be emphasized.(Gallagher, 2010)
Gallagher, A. (2010). Moral distress and moral courage in everyday nursing practice. The
Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 16(2), 1. Retrieved from http://www. nursingworld. org/MainMenuCategories/EthicsStandards/Courage-and-Distress/Moral-Distress-and-Courage-in-Everyday-Practice. html
Nurses want to leave hospitals due to moral distress. (2013). Advance for Nurses, 1. Retrieved
from http://nursing. advanceweb. com/Article/Nurses-Want-to-Leave-Hospitals-Due-to-Moral-Distress. aspx