ETHICAL ISSUES LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to: Discuss ethical theories and principles as they relate to pain management. Explain the concept of an ethical dilemma and how it relates to the management of pain. Compare the ethical codes of the American Nurses Association and the International Council of Nurses. Explain the relationship of ethics to law. Discuss laws that control the manufacture and distribution of drugs. Because pain is the most common reason people seek medical care, its management is one of the most important functions of healthcare providers. For this reason, understanding ethical principles and legal issues as they apply to pain is essential for every caregiver.

ETHICAL ISSUES
Ethics: A Branch of Philosophy Many people roll their eyes and change the subject when they hear the word ethics, viewing it as too controversial or too complex to discuss freely. Nonetheless, ethics is a significant concern of thinking, caring persons, especially nurses who manage the care of people in pain. Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the rightness or wrongness of human behavior and the goodness or badness of its effects. Ethics assumes that people have the ability to make choices about their behavior. For that reason it has been the subject of philosophical discussion for centuries and has generated an enormous body of literature. Students of ethics have divided these writings into three general categories: descriptive (characterizing), analytical (metaethics), and prescriptive (normative). Descriptive ethics reports and describes the moral choices people make. Analytical ethics scrutinize the language people use to discuss issues of right and wrong. Prescriptive ethics offers advice about how people should decide what is good or bad behavior. It does this from two very different perspectives: teleological and deontological. A teleological (consequential, utilitarian, situational) perspective affirms that the rightness or wrongness of an act is determined by the end results of an action. The term comes from the Greek teleos, meaning end. If the end result harms others, the act is considered wrong or bad. If the end result benefits others, the act is considered good or right. The central issue of this perspective is the principle of the greatest good. The utilitarian teachings of John Stuart Mill and the situation ethics teachings.