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Ethically Competent Radiology Nurses

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Highlights

  • Strengthening of moral agency in professional nursing practice is needed.

  • Examples of guidance using the 2015 Code of Ethics for Nurses are given in this article.

  • Moral resilience education is needed for nurses.

Abstract

Radiology nursing is becoming more ethically challenging in today's rapidly changing health care environment. This article illustrates the practical guidance the 2015 Code of Ethics for Nurses offers to address everyday ethical challenges in radiology nursing. The article defines ethics and moral agency, highlights key elements of the revised code of ethics, and uses scenarios to analyze common ethical challenges for radiology nurses, including pediatric scenarios. The article concludes with resources every nurse can access to address everyday challenges and a brief discussion of moral distress and resilience.

Introduction

Short staffing, patient acuity, myriad ever more complex procedures, leadership's focus on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores and finances, all make ethical practice all the more challenging for today's radiology nurses. Our work is not getting easier and neither is ethical practice. Would that one only need a good heart to be ethical? Moral agency, the ability to be trusted to be who the public needs us to be in our professional roles, is a prized capacity and requires the same sort of intentional development that expert practice requires. In January 2015, the American Nurses Association (ANA, 2015) released the newly revised Code of Ethics for Nurses. With its practical language and focus on contemporary ethical challenges, the code offers real guidance for all nurses. In this article, the author defines ethics and moral agency, highlights key elements of the revised code of ethics, and uses scenarios to analyze common ethical challenges for radiology nurses. The article concludes with resources every nurse can access.

Section snippets

Ethics and moral agency

Ethics can be defined simply as the study of who we ought to be in light of our identity. One of the roles of a profession is to clarify the identity of its members. The ANA (2015) issued an important statement about the ethical commitments of professional nurses. All practicing nurses, including radiology nurses, are advised to read this document, which is available at www.nursingworld.org.

Moral agency is the capacity to habitually act in an ethical manner. It is what allows the public to

Key elements of the revised Code of Ethics for Nurses

The Code of Ethics for Nurses provides a succinct statement of the ethical values, obligations, and duties of every individual who enters the nursing profession, serves as the profession's nonnegotiable ethical standard, and expresses nursing's own understanding of its commitment to society. Provisions 1 to 3 reiterate the fundamental values and commitments of the nurse, Provisions 4 to 6 identify the boundaries of duty and loyalty, and Provisions 7 to 9 describe the duties of the nurse that

Scenario I

Fifteen-year-old twins with sickle cell disease, Jane and Sharon, arrive in the department to have a port placed. Everyone is ready for the procedure when Jane refuses and starts kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, no one knows these young women or has a trusting relationship established. The radiologist quickly becomes impatient and urges everyone to get started. “Let's go. Maybe a little sedation will help.”

  • An ethically competent nurse would literally halt efforts to place the port until

Read the Code and Make It Your Friend

Every nurse should be familiar with the Code of Ethics for Nurses. Try making this a topic at your next department meetings and assign individuals to start conversation on the following questions:

  • 1.

    What surprised you when you read the Code of Ethics for Nurses?

  • 2.

    The code is unambiguous that the nurse's primary commitment is to the patient. Everyday, we work to satisfy multiple stakeholders, our institution, our physician and other health care colleagues, our nurse colleagues, patients and their

A final word about moral distress and resilience

When a radiology nurse knows the right thing to do, but institutional (or other external or internal) variables make it nearly impossible to pursue the right course of action, moral distress arises (Epstein and Hamric, 2009, Jameton, 1984). The difficulty is the inability to translate moral choices into moral action and the eventual undermining of the nurse's integrity and authenticity (Rushton, 2006). Today, a growing literature is educating nurses and other professionals about moral distress,

Conclusion

Moral agency, the ability to be trusted to be who the public needs us to be in our professional roles, is a prized capacity and requires the same sort of intentional development that expert practice requires. Hopefully, this article has offered practical suggestions about how we can help one another and ourselves address the ethical challenges in our daily practice. If you have not yet read the 2015 revised ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses, this is a good place to reboot your ethical formation for

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Kathleen A. Gross, MSN, BS, RN-BC, CRN, Editor, Journal of Radiology Nursing, and Lorie Reilly, MSN, CRNP, CPNP-ACNP, Department of Sedation, Radiology and Vascular Access Nursing, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for their helpful suggestions.

References (8)

  • American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Silver Spring, MD:...
  • American Psychological Association. (2015). The road to resilience. Retrieved from...
  • Association for Radiologic & Imaging Nursing. (2016). ARIN position statement: Capnography. Retrieved from...
  • E.G. Epstein et al.

    Moral distress, moral residue, and the crescendo effect

    The Journal of Clinical Ethics

    (2009)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (4)

  • Radiology Nursing Ethics and Moral Distress

    2020, Journal of Radiology Nursing
    Citation Excerpt :

    These passages of the pledge connote what is known as virtue ethics, or being of good character, which is rooted in the ancient Greek philosophy of Aristotle (Hart, 2019). Taylor (2016) challenges the sufficiency of virtue ethics for radiology nurses by posing the poignant question, “Would that one only need a good heart to be ethical?” ( p. 286).

Conflict of interest: None to report.

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