Death and dying during COVID-19: The role of health care workers

Nurses are essential in patient care, upholding the ethical principles of their profession and effectively navigating ethical dilemmas. Neglecting ethical issues can lead to inadequate patient care, compromised therapeutic relationships, and moral distress among healthcare workers.
Ethical Concerns in Healthcare:

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross significantly advanced psychology's understanding of the process of dying with her influential book, On Death and Dying (1969). She focused on studying terminally ill individuals and outlined five stages commonly experienced when coping with death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
In denial, individuals reject the reality of their condition, often thinking, "This isn't true; I feel fine," as a way to protect themselves from...

The issues and trends in healthcare delivery are constantly changing. The COVID-19 pandemic is one recent issue that wreaked havoc on healthcare systems, causing a shortage of healthcare workers, high demand for medicines and supplies, and increased medical expenditure due to a lack of insurance. Other issues include rising healthcare costs and care fragmentation.
Cost Containment
Payment for healthcare services has historically promoted adoption of costly and often unnecessary or inefficient...

Resolving an ethical dilemma in healthcare involves a systematic approach that considers every aspect of the issue, respecting both the patient's needs and values and the healthcare professional's ethical obligations. Here are potential steps to resolve an ethical dilemma:

Current trends in nursing include:

Ethical dilemmas in nursing are of utmost importance, as they often arise from the tension between adhering to core ethical principles and the practical realities of healthcare delivery. These dilemmas require nurses to navigate complex situations where competing ethical considerations pull them in different directions.
Let us explore some examples to understand the potentially complex moral decisions nurses face.
Take the case of caring for minors, particularly in areas related to reproductive...