SEVEN BIOETHICAL PRINCIPLES

Felipe A. Merano, RN, MSN

Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actions, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character, they becomes your destiny. Frank Outlaw

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance, and even our very existence depends on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

Autonomy Non-Male ficence Universal Principle Justice Confiden tiality

Benefi cence

Veracity

Role Fidelity

AUTONOMY
Birth of Informed Consent Elements of Informed Consent.
Knowledge: Patient should know the procedure, the risk and possibilities. Understanding: Explain carefully with full understanding of the procedure. Voluntariness: no coercion, no treats, with freedom and free will. Signing of Informed Consent:

AUTONOMY
Types of Informed Consent.
Legal: Oral & Written Verbal Implied: I will give you injection & the patient participate.
AUTONOMY is not applicable in Emergency Cases.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Keeping in secret or in private all information about the patient. The ethical principles that requires nondisclosure of private or secret information with which one is interested. The ability to maintain privacy in ones life is an expression of autonomy.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Threats to confidentiality: Obligation to documents Use of Electronic Recording Limits of Confidentiality The harm principles can be applied when the nurse or other professional recognizes that maintaining confidentiality will result in preventable wrongful harm to innocent others.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Limits of Confidentiality The right of society overrides the privacy of the individual privacy. The obligation to protect the innocent party supercede the obligation to maintain confidentiality.

ROLE FIDELITY
Faithfulness to our call as a nurse, to our profession, to our duty. Fidelity is often related to the concept of faithfulness and the practice of keeping promises. Society has granted nurses the right to practice nursing through the process of licensure and certification. Licensure ensures that no other group can perform its right to practice.

ROLE FIDELITY
To accept licensure mandates that nurses uphold responsibility inherent in the contrast with society. Members are called to be faithful to the society that grants the right to practice.
To keep the promise of upholding the professional code of ethics. To practice within the establish scope of practice & definition of nursing. To remain competent in the practice of nursing. To abide by the policies of employing institution. To keep promise to individual patients.

ROLE FIDELITY
TO BE A NURSE IS TO MAKE PROMISE. Fidelity also relates to loyalty within the nursing profession. Problems also arise when there is conflict of promises that have been made in which carrying themout will cause harm in other ways. We must be faithful to 1) scope of practice, 2) Co-profession, nurse, physician & allied, 3) Patient, community & society

ROLE FIDELITY
ISSUES INVOLVED IN ROLE FIDELITY. 1. Whistle Blowing 2. Disparagement 3. Sexual Harassment 4. Conflict of Interest 5. Impaired Colleagues

Whistle Blowing
Is when an employee tells on an employee who is breaking the law. Employee who blow the whistle on their employers are protected by the law. If they are fired or terminated or retaliated against whistle blow, they can sue.

It takes courage to blow the whistle.

To actually WB the employee must tell of the illegal act to someone outside the company. It must be the government or law enforcement. If the employee complain to someone inside the company, that is not WB but he/she is protected by the law.

 Disparagement - To bring discredit to a co-profession in public. Sexual Harassment Bring discredit to a profession. Conflict of Interest Prescription Pads / Goods in Return. Violation of Fidelity. Vested Interest. Impaired Colleagues Interest of public / patient. It should be reported to the authority for the good of public.

DISPARAGEMENT
In old English Law, an injury resulting from the comparison of a person or thing with an individual or thing of inferior quality; to discredit oneself by marriage below one's class. A statement made by one person that casts aspersions on another person's goods, property, or intangible things.

DISPARAGEMENT
Disparagement of goods is a false or misleading statement by an entrepreneur about a competitor's goods. It is made with the intention of influencing people adversely so they will not buy the goods. Disparagement of title is a false or malicious statement made about an individual's title to real or Personal Property. Such disparagement may result in a pecuniary loss due to impairment of vendibility that the defamatory statements might cause.

VERACITY
Truth Telling