The Role of Advanced Practicing Nurses

The role of Advanced Practicing Nurses (APNs)
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In today’s public health care environment, nurses are faced with complex ethical and moral dilemmas, especially in situations where they are hindered from doing the right thing by conflicting beliefs and values held by other healthcare providers. In such situations, upholding their obligations to patient calls for increased moral courage and may lead to adverse results. These issues accentuate the need for advanced practicing nurses (APNs) to be committed towards creating environments that nurtures moral courage.
By applying moral courage, nurses base their decisions on the beneficence ethical principle which stipulates that nurses should always endeavor to do good for others. They are also guided by an internal motivation grounded in values, virtues and standards that they see as important in terms of what are right. These values are the foundation upon which APNs bases their moral actions. In this context, APNs has a role to be able to identify and respond to unethical situations (LaSala & Bjarnason, 2010). Further, they should be familiar with nursing professional standards and codes of ethics for them to identify situations which may otherw...