Are Nurses Compelled to Tell the Truth?

¶ … Nurse, Must I always tell the truth?

Truth

There is a considerable amount of debate as to whether or not nurses are compelled to tell the truth when they are discussing sensitive patient information. The purpose of this document is to clarify the matter and to present an answer to the question of whether or not nurses must always tell the truth. Nurses who tell the truth are acting in a manner that is not morally ambiguous and that is in accordance with their jobs. Although there may be circumstances which might justify prevaricating to patients, doing so always leaves doubt as to whether the nurse is fulfilling his or her professional responsibility or acting in a morally compliant way. Therefore, nurses must always tell the truth because it is morally responsible to do so, it is part of their job to do so, and by properly phrasing the truth, nurses can account for any uncertainties or ambiguities.

There is little doubt that simply telling the truth is a morally acceptable act. All nurses make a commitment to ethics as part of the various organizations for which they provide health care. Thus, by answering the questions of patients with honesty nurses are essentially acting in a manner that is morally responsible. One of the most cogent pieces of evidence to verify this fact is the notion of virtue ethics, in which individuals consider the moral responsibility of their actions as of one the chief determinants of the virtue of such actions. Aristotle did some of the seminal writing on virtue ethics, and determined that "the virtuous will speak the truth when nothing depends on it and will speak it all the more when something depends on it" (Hodkinson, 2008, p. 249). Therefore, nurses are morally justified for telling the truth, which is one of the reasons they must always do so.

Nurses must also always tell the truth because doing so is part of their jobs. The general public depends on the healthcare system for accurate information about their health. Nurses are an integral component of this system and are relied upon for verifiable information. As such, there is no denying the fact that that it unequivocally part of a nurse's job to deliver accurate information to patients when they are asked for it, since "Telling the truth to patients and their families about their condition is an important part of building trusting…relationships" (Hird, 2005, p. 196). If nurses cannot grant this sort of information to the patient's themselves, then they should give it to the family of the patients. Doing so is simply a part of the job that nurses have agreed upon to perform when getting involved with the health care system.