Major Legal and Ethical Issues Faced by Oncology Nurse

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In park’s article “Ethical Issues in Nursing Practice” there are three major legal and ethical issues faced by oncology nurses. One of the main areas of legal and ethical issues is end-of-life treatment decisions. Oncology nurses often have to face ethical issues such as whether to prolong life unnecessarily, treating or not treating patients despite the wishes of the family, removing life support, or making the decision to resuscitate or not to resuscitate (Park, 2009). Other end-of-life ethical issues include whether to treat severely disabled infants, children, or adults, going against a patient’s religious or cultural views, or nurses acting against their own religious views. Oncology nurses also have to address legal and ethical issues regarding organ transplants, overuse or underuse of pain medications, requesting too many or too few medical tests, and whether or not to participate in assisted suicide.
Another area where oncology nurses have to address ethical issues is in patient care. For example, patient abuse or neglect, staffing patterns that restrict adequate patient access to care, limited resources such as equipment or staff, and implementation of managed care policies that could be detrimental to providing quality care (Park, 2009). Oncology nurses also need to address confidentiality issues such as when cancer patients have other chronic conditions such as HIV, rights of minors, and patient autonomy. Nurses also often encounter discriminatory treatment of patients which they may not know how to address and encountering patients or families who may be uninformed or misinformed about available ...