Ethical Decision Making Process

Morality for today's nurses
Analyze the MORAL model as a useful tool for ethical decision making.
The MORAL model is an extremely useful tool for ethical decision making. In fact, it is somewhat of a relief to realize that there are tools that help one to objectively evaluate an ethical situation. Oftentimes, ethics seems so subjective. Therefore, the MORAL model is a welcome addition to nurses as well as to everyday people who simply need help objectively examining an ethical situation.
On the one hand, this model is valuable because it causes nurses to examine a situation holistically. Specifically, the first step of the model (massage the situation) involves nurses examining a particular situation from a variety of lenses. Doing so is pivotal to understanding what is truly at stake and for whom it is at stake. The variation of the different perspectives with which a nurse views a situation then becomes the basis for the next step, determining viable options. However, what is perhaps even more beneficial is the next phase of the model in which the nurse comes up with the best and worst case scenarios for each of the options. Again, this step is contextualized within the diversified frame of the multiple lenses referenced in the first step of the model. This step is valuable because it enables people to seek a comprehensive understanding of the scope of possibilities which might occur. Just getting through these first steps is an excellent way to approach an ethical decision.
Describe the role of the nurse as an advocate for patients in various ethical situations.
There is a great degree of diversification in the role of a nurse as an advocate for patients in various ethical decisions. Nurses not only have to advocate for their patients, but also for the various parties involved with those patients. These include family members, friends, church parishioners, and any other relevant groups. In this respect the nurse’s role is to provide allegiance to the patient, but to do so in the context of how that advocacy might affect those other groups. The nurse is actually tasked with balancing out all of these concerns when she advocates for her patients. For instance, she does not want to advocate the patient taking a stance that is against the law. Ideally, she would not necessarily want to advocate a stance in which the patient is at odds with the value of the patient’s family, friends, or church. Nurses must account for all of these factors when advocating for patients while still prioritizing the needs of their patients before these other concerns.
Explain the effects of moral stress and distress as they apply to the nurse in ethical situations.
Essentially, the effects of moral stress and distress as they apply to a nurse in ethical situations stem from having to balance so many different concerns. The nurse must demonstrate allegiance to her profession, her employer, her patient, her patient’s family, and her patient’s surrounding community. When all of these different factors conflict—which frequently occurs in ethical situations—nurses have difficulty deciding which concern to prioritize for the basis of their action. Moral stress, therefore, is the natural ramification of agonizing over ethical decisions that are not clear cut despite the presence of models such as the MORAL model. The impact of such stress and distress can include poor job performance, dissatisfaction in one’s personal life, withdrawing from the profession, incurring difficulty eating, or any other consequence of constantly dealing with a stressful situation.
References
Guido, G. (2014). Legal and Ethical Issues in Nursing (6th ed.). Pearson, Boston, MA