Legal & Ethical Issues Affecting Nursing Education

Nurses are at the forefront for care given to patients, and may deal with life and death situations daily. During their nursing education, nurses must be cautioned that there are a host of legal and ethical issues that will affect how the job is carried out.

End-of-Life Care

• Deciding how to administer end-of-life care will be one of the hardest things for you as a nurse. Nurse educators inform prospective nurses that discussing living wills, organ donation, and power of attorney is necessary, and must be handled with care. As a prospective nurse you must be honest and not try and persuade the patient's family.

Consent

• Nursing educators almost must inform prospective nurses that before major medical procedures such as resuscitation or surgery can be performed that consent is paramount. This must be stressed because failure to do so could subject the hospital or facility to litigation.

Privacy

• Another point that must be introduced in nursing education is the importance of patient privacy, which is both an ethical and a legal issue. It must be ingrained in prospective nurses that disclosure of private patient information is prohibited under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).