Law, professional ethics and the problem of conflict with personal values

There are, on occasions, instances in which a nurse may not agree with a given medical order of prescribed treatment. This is particularly likely in cases involving the use of extraordinary means of lifesaving treatments on chronically or terminally ill patients. In such instances, the nurse may either (1) refuse to carry out the given medical order(s) or (2) refuse/decline to care for the patient in question (e.g. the nurse may instead request to be assigned a different patient in an attempt to avoid a personal dilemma). In cases where medical orders stand to violate the law, a nurse's refusal to carry out the medical order(s) in question might be seen to be fully justified; where medical orders violate nothing more than a philosophical or personal sense of right and wrong, however, justification for refusing to carry out such orders may not seem so defensible. Below, the author critically examines the above questions in relation to a real-life scenario. It should be noted that while brief reference will be made to one or two legal considerations, the author's primary intention is to argue a philosophical-moral position, not a legal one; therefore no apology will be made for omitting certain other legal considerations or points which critics might contend ought to be included in the ensuing discussion.