The nursing shortage, patient care, and ethics

Although nursing shortages are not new, many nurses consider the present shortage to be different from those in the past. Nurses are again questioning whether patients are receiving the quality of care they deserve. Overwhelmed by this nursing shortage, nurses are trying to reconcile how to fulfill their duties to advocate for good patient care and to warn patients about conditions that are possibly detrimental to their welfare. This article discusses two ethical issues that nurses, in the midst of a nursing shortage, face in their clinical practice: lack of control over their practice and potential for harm to patients and themselves. There is also a description of strategies that nurses can use to promote and maintain an environment within the organization that supports providing good patient care.