Beneficence

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how nurses must sometimes to renounce their personal morality for a professional code of ethics, much as patients temporarily renounce control over their bodies for treatment renunciations. It looks at how although the principles of beneficence may be discomforting at times, they are necessary in the health care profession and how they have existed long before managed care or even modern hospitalization.

From the Paper:

"Likewise, the patient has no right to deplore the nurse's credentials, even though the patient may refuse treatment, because the nurse may be overweight and not, in her personal life, not pursue the practice of her own health to the optimal degree, in the patient's estimation. So long as the nurses' lifestyle decisions do not affect his or her credentials as a health care professional nor his or her ability to treat patients (as they would if the nurse was abusing alcohol on the job, or selling prescription drugs intended for patient treatment) the principle of beneficence, to do no personal harm to one another, exists as an obligation to both nurses and patients within the health care system of 2004."

More papers on Beneficence:

• Analytical Essay # 60135 : "Beneficence in Nursing"
• Analytical Essay # 138643 : "Beneficence in Health Care"
• Analytical Essay # 136315 : "Beneficence vs Non-Malfeasance"

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