Key concepts and issues in nursing ethics

Nursing and the ethical dimension of practice; A duty-based approach for nursing ethics & practice; Utilitarianism as an approach to ethical decision making in health care; Virtue wthics and nursing practice; The concept of person; Patient autonomy in nursing and healthcare contexts; The nurse as patient advocate?; Ethical issues at the beginning of life; Ethical issues at the end of life; Ethical issues in mental health nursing; Resource allocation and rationing in nursing care; Values-based nursing and fitness to practice issues; Ethical principles in healthcare research; Clinical and organisation ethics: implications for healthcare practice

Short case studies, based on real stories from the health care arena, ensure that each chapter of this book is rooted in descriptions of nursing practise that are grounded, salient narratives of nursing care. The reader is assisted to explore the ethical dimension of nursing practice: what it is and how it can be portrayed, discussed, and analysed within a variety of practice and theoretical contexts. One of the unique contributions of this book is to consider nursing not only in the context of the individual nurse – patient relationship but also as a social good that is of necessity limited, due to the ultimate limits on the nursing and health care resource