Richard A. Hernandez

Author: Richard A. Hernandez

To act without rapacity, to use knowledge with wisdom, to respect interdependence, to operate without hubris and greed are not simply imperatives, they are an accurate scientific description of the means of survival

— Barbara Ward

You've got to be brave and you've got to be boa Brave enough to take your chance on your own discrimination — what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad.

— Robert frost

Nursing is an important field in healthcare as it is the process for caring for, or nurturing client in all health care setting. It also refers to the care carried out by any individual who has had formal edification and preparation in the art and science of nursing. To further provide satisfactory service to their patients, nurses also have to observe moral and ethical principles and practices, as ethics and morals may serve to provide dilemmas and conflicts in rendering sufficient service to patients. In addition, ethical principles and morals must be properly given importance and significance in the nursing practice to ensure that the well-being and health of the patients would be given priority, thus, upholding and promoting the moral aspect of the practice. Ethical nursing practice involves the performance of nurses' roles and responsibilities which is facilitated with integration of social justice towards the promotion of life. Nurses should endeavor as much as possible individually and as a group to advocate for and eliminate social inequities, injustice and discrimination.

Today, nursing students are expected to think critically, and to utilize moral and ethical principles in carrying out their responsibilities during their related learning experiences. This book was made possible in anticipation of meeting learning needs, albeit the approach is synthesis of conceptual and theoretical highlights. Moreover, the purpose of this hook is to assist students integrate concepts of holistic nursing with the application of appropriate ethical and moral principles to all types of patients anytime in any health care setting.

Organization of the Text

Chapter 1: Ethics and Nursing Care focuses on the discussion of morality of an act and the significance of ethics in the health care industry.

Chapter 2: Approaches in Ethics highlights the factors to be considered in making decisions which are moral.

Chapter 3: The Roles of Nurse Ethicist enumerates the responsibilities of nurses to their patients, physicians and among others who are connected in the promotion of the client's welfare.

Chapter 4: Bioethical Principles discusses certain principles of ethics to be considered in making decision in times of conflicting issues, especially those that question the morality of an act.

Chapter 5: Issues on Family Planning discusses the different methods of natural and artificial family planning. It also enumerates propositions for and against institution of family planning.

Chapter 6: Issues on Abortion provides a discussion of different types of abortion and how the community at large reacts on the morality of this act.

Chapter 7: Issues on Euthanasia describes the different forms of euthanasia and enumerates some of the religious objections.

Chapter 8: Issues on In Vitro Fertilization describes the in vitro fertilization and discusses the morality of this act.

Chapter 9: Issues on Stem-cell Research describes stem cell and enumerates propositions for and against researches on stem cells.

Chapter 10: Issues on Medical Tourism focuses on the description, process and history of medical tourism and enumerates some of its legal and moral implications.