Complicating matters further is the fact raised by Eriksson et al. (2008) that when doctors, psychiatrists, and other health care workers operate as a team the guidelines established by their individual professional organizations may clash.
Thus, greater multiplicity is not the solution. Greater clarity and specificity trump multiplicity in terms of what the biomedical industries need in order to ensure ethical behaviors within their organizations. If the primary goal of ethical guidelines is to inform ethical behavior, then that goal must in fact be clearly stated at the onset of the guidelines. Likewise, if ethical guidelines form the foundation for legislation, then the law must also point to the philosophical or ideological foundations upon which the regulations are founded.
A barrier between personal and professional values also threatens to undermine the usefulness of ethical guidelines within the biomedical industry. What the authors fail to mention is the fact that nurses and doctors work within a more diverse social and...
Globalization and the migration of healthcare labor has meant that individual nurses and doctors operate within vastly different cultural and ethical frameworks. These conflicts of values are apparent when individuals whose values differ make decisions that impact the behavior of practicing nurses. Similarly, the patients' point-of-view is rarely considered. Ambiguity in ethical guidelines, coupled with their overly complex multiplicity, makes it difficult for patients to understand what their rights may be. Issues like informed consent and patient autonomy come to the surface almost daily in the nursing profession. Therefore, we nurses must advocate greater clarity and specificity of ethical guidelines. Those guidelines should bear respect to diversity and situational nuance too.
, Reference
Eriksson, S., Hoglund, a.T., & Helgesson, G. (2008). Do ethical guidelines give guidance? A critical examination of eight ethics regulations. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 17(15-29).
