Description of the Ethical Challenge
In order to comply with the Nursing ethics and ensure anonymity, all names have been changed, as well as the patient will really be addressed as Shessy for the purposes of this reflection (Chonko & Hunt, 2018). An ethical challenge that developed during a placement in a range of settings will be discussed in this reflective assessment of the experience. Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle, which includes six stages: description, emotions and opinions, appraisal, analysis, summation, and plan of action, can be used to aid the reflective cycle. By learning the concepts by both positive and negative life experience, I will strengthen my clinical expertise, as well as develop my self-esteem in the context of compassion for others, which again will enhance and fortify my clinical expertise.
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Throughout the course of the therapy, Shessy remained optimistic that he would be prepared to implement his problems behind him and return to a ‘normal’ life with his spouse and children. It’s possible that our initial division of labor functioned quite well because everyone having a say in whatever piece of the allotted task they wanted to improve on, but also because we divided the work in such a way that ego as well as self-abilities were equally distributed. Shessy, on the other hand, was unable to maintain control of his normal temperature, which would have been a likely indicator that the chemotherapy had been unsuccessful, and he was given more studies to determine his prognosis (Daly, Speedy, & Jackson, 2015). Shessy is a thirty year old guy who has been undergoing harsh as well as invasive treatments of chemotherapy for many months in an effort to cure his Hodgkinson’s lymphoma malignancy for several months. I’ve had past experience working in this fashion, and I’ve discovered that when I’m on my own, I seem to want to pursue careers which are a good match for my abilities.
This appears to be the situation in groups too though, which appears to be realistic in my opinion. I suppose we chose this strategy because we felt it would save us money when it came time to stitch the parts in at the end, and then as a consequence, we didn’t even notice how inefficient it was until much later. According to Belbin’s (e.g. 2010) proportionality theory, each person has certain skills and weaknesses that they may contribute to the group. While you may not have thought of the team members in much the same way that Belbin would, it seems that excellent collaboration and task delegation are the consequence of using people’s varied abilities, which is precisely what we accomplished in this instance, according to you. In reality, it ended up taking far longer than we planned, and we were under time constraints to finish the rewrite as soon as feasible. It is my opinion that because the fact that we would have not considered whether or not we would be writing and organizing the portions contributed to our present problem. When I was looking over some group work materials, I came across two things that helped me better understand the situation and its implications.
Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle
While my mentor, who seems to be a Community Matron, must have been talking to Shessy, his colleague Sue pulled me aside and asked myself to if it would have been possible to deny negative information from Shessy if the research studies discovered a poor prognosis since she believed he would not have been ready to deal with such a poor prognosis and therefore would lose hope (Moloney, Gorman, Parsons, & Cheung, 2018). In my explanation to Sue, I said that this scenario was outside of my realm of experience, but that, with her permission, I would examine it with my supervisor and request that she call Sue at a mutually agreeable time to address the problem further. Even though it was acknowledged before to Shessy’s first admittance that the chemotherapy would not be effective, he refused to accept it as an alternative since he was certain that the problem could be properly treated.
Evaluation, Analysis & Conclusion about the Learning Experience
Shessy’s test results revealed that her chemotherapy treatment had been a failure, as was predicted. Given what he knew about Shessy, the specialist felt that it would be beneficial to keep the diagnosis a secret from him. As a consequence, it was decided that Shessy’s findings would be discussed with his partner (Yue, 2016). Sue got a call from my mentor, who informed her that she would address the problem with Shessy’s Consultant as soon as the results of his tests were received by the clinic. Sue, on the other hand, was delicately reminded by my mentor that she has no legal authority to require that material be withheld from Robert (Dimond 2005).
Patient’s must be informed about their illness, rehabilitation prospects, why their ailment will develop, therapeutic intervention, and the consequences of any such treatments in order to make an informed decision about whether or not to assent to treatment those who desire or refuse treatment they do not want, according to Lo (2009). At this time, autonomy is an extremely highly valued ideal that medical practitioners should encourage at all times. It is also essential for all patient contacts, of which giving a patient the truth about his or her diagnosis and prognosis is a component (Dimond 2005).
It has only been in the last 20 years or so that it has been common practice to share decision-making with patients in order to empower them to make educated decisions about their chosen diagnosis and treatment (Boyle 1995). Traditional paternalism, when a doctor alone decides whether or not to tell their patient of a diagnosis, was the chosen approach of treating and assisting patients for a long time (Lo B 2009). But not all patients would really like to know about prognosis or participate in their final therapy and care towards the end of their lives. According to the findings of a research conducted in 1995, certain ethnic groups were less likely than others to support truth-telling in medical diagnosis than that of other ethnic groups (Blackwell 1995).
The term “groupthink” refers to a scenario wherein members of a group need not voice opposing ideas to a prevalent attitude or decision because they do not want their opinions to be seen as being outside of the group. As a result of being constructively critical of our beliefs about our plan, I think we might have discovered that it was never going to be effective in the first place (Yue, 2016). The United Kingdom has a varied cultural population, and not all individuals and families really want and accept freedom. When a person is unwell in certain cultures, the family wants to assume responsibility regarding medical choices and often requests to be informed of the prognosis and nursing program before the patient is informed of it. Another hypothesis that might explain why we did not predict that the approach might fail throughout the first place is the phenomenon known as groupthink. There were several aspects of groupthink prevalent in the group, such as: ‘collective rationalisation’, we continued telling one another and that what we were doing was proper; and perhaps the ‘illusion of indestructibility’, we were all excellent students, so therefore didn’t recognise whatever was wrong.
Furthermore, there may be disparities within certain cultures, including such new immigrants and elder family members who prefer to cling to cultural norms and newer family members who wish to exercise autonomy, which further complicates this complicated problem (Lo B 2009). I believe that being cognizant of groupthink will be beneficial in the future while working in groups and attempting to make judgments. Despite the fact that this is frequently the case throughout Chinese and Japanese cultures, it still does not imply that the patient’s desire to delay identification will be granted automatically.
Conclusion
According to the data, if a Consultant determines that it is not acceptable to notify the person of the diagnosis as well as prognosis, it is appropriate to provide knowledge to the patient’s family instead. Some, on the other hand, might argue that withholding knowledge would constitute paternalism. It is essential that we plan how we choose each segment to look and feel before breaking work into parts. Doing so would have made it much easier to bring these sections together again and submit them all at once without needing to do as much editing as would otherwise have been necessary. I should continue to urge people to self-identify their abilities, and in the event of longer projects, I may even suggest that they adopt the ‘Belbin team roles’-framework to coordinate their activities in order to save time. Finally, I discovered that it is sometimes important to challenge the decisions that we seem to have made as a group in order to ensure that we just haven’t been agreeing solely on the strength of groupthink. Patients do not have any legal rights to information, and as a result, if a Consultant considers that it is in the best interests of the patient, he or she may decline to provide them with a diagnosis.
References
Chonko, L. B., & Hunt, S. D. (2018). Reflections on ethical issues in marketing management: An empirical examination. Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, 28(1), 86-95.
Daly, J., Speedy, S., & Jackson, D. (2015). Leadership and Nursing: Contemporary perspectives (2nd Edition ed.). Elsevier Health Sciences.
Moloney, W., Gorman, D., Parsons, M., & Cheung, G. (2018). How to keep registered nurses working in New Zealand even as economic conditions improve. Human Resources for Health, 16(45), 1-8.
Yue, D. (2016). An Alternative Globalization on the Basis of Reflection and Negotiation. In China and the West at the Crossroads (pp. 331-335). Singapore: Springer.