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Caring as Coercion: Exploring the Nurse's Role in Mandated Treatment
1Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa.
Journal of Forensic Nursing
|August 22, 2018
Summary
Nurses navigate complex systems by skillfully managing competing priorities, often making ethical dilemmas invisible. This research explores how microethics can guide nurses facing care-as-coercion situations.
Area of Science:
- Nursing Ethics
- Bioethics
- Healthcare Systems Analysis
Background:
- Nurses operate within multifaceted environments with intersecting medical, legal, institutional, social, and therapeutic demands.
- Nursing care can be instrumental in reconciling the divergent objectives of these complex systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the ethical complexities nurses face when balancing competing system priorities.
- To explore the application of microethics in guiding nurses' daily decisions in care-as-coercion scenarios.
Main Methods:
- A composite case study is utilized to illustrate the manifestation of these ethical dilemmas in nursing practice.
- The study explores the theoretical framework of microethics for informing nursing decisions.
Main Results:
- Skillful nursing can effectively manage and obscure tensions arising from competing system priorities.
- Nurses' humanizing empathy can enhance mandated care, while their expertise may conceal systemic weaknesses.
Conclusions:
- Nurses are positioned in ethically challenging roles where their actions can both improve care and mask structural deficiencies.
- Microethics offers a valuable lens for understanding and navigating the everyday ethical decisions in nursing care, particularly in contexts of coercion.