Journal of Nursing & Care

An Ethical Incident from My Nursing Career

Abstract

Adham R Al Arbeed and Diala AL Hakim

Nurses represent the largest community in the health system. At the same time, they are the closest to the patients among all health care providers. Furthermore, nurses’ roles contain a lot of interaction with patients. This interaction hides huge potential possibilities for them to face moral situations. In addition, moral situations usually have a complex nature. For all that, nurses should be prepared with knowledge and critical thinking skills to be able to make sound moral decisions. This paper discusses the ethical dimensions of an incident. The incident presents the conflict nurses usually face during and after making a paternalistic intervention. The aim of this paper is to discuss the ethical issues related to the paternalistic interventions in the light of the suitable ethical theories in the literature.