Ethical Dilemmas in Caring for Terminally Ill Children Essay Paper

I appreciate it if you can help me in completing this assignment – Professor has not given any Rubric – minimum expectation is 500 – 750 words but not more than 2 pages. We just need one Journal Article or Webinar for this Research Article Assignment.
Resource: Textbook. Review table 19.4 on page 607.
Choose one of the common ethical dilemmas (there are 5). Be sure you understand that this is related to a dying child, not just treatment in general.
Write a short essay about how you think it might be to be the nurse caring for a terminally ill child focusing on that one dilemma.
What would you say to the parents? What would you say to the child? How would you act? Do you have any personal experiences that have changed the way you think about the topic? What biases are you bringing to nursing care?
Use Times new roman 12 font. No need to cite or use APA. This will be mostly an opinion and personal experience paper and you can use \”I\”.
It is evident that one of the 5 dilemmas was chosen and discussed. Professional, grammatically correct, proofread with minimal spelling errors.

Ethical Dilemmas in Caring for Terminally Ill Children

Facing the imminent death of a loved one is a uniquely individual and yet deeply shared and universal experience as it has an impact on the perceptions of identity, personhood and culture. For many parents, this is an experience that is widely discrepant from what they envisioned and want for their terminally ill children. In fact, there has be an increasing awareness that there is an incongruence between what parents envision for their terminally ill children and what actually happens. But while there is a general agreement that this is not the ideal reality that parents and medical personnel strive for, there is some disagreement about the specific roles of medical personnel and parents in the process (Stol, 2018). Ethical Dilemmas in Caring for Terminally Ill Children Essay Paper  The present paper offers a personal opinion about the ethical dilemma that nurses face in providing resuscitation to a terminally ill child.

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As indicated, the case involves the resuscitation of a terminally ill child. The rationale offered for providing resuscitation services is that the family is unwilling to give up on the patients, conflicts with religious and/or cultural beliefs, and denial that the patient is actually going to die. The rationale offered for withholding resuscitation is allowing nature to take its course, family belief that the child has suffered enough and should not be subjected to any more aggressive interventions, and the providing relief to the family from the responsibility of stopping interventions that might prolong life.

What would you say to the parents?

The parents have the legal responsibility of making health care decisions for the terminally ill child. This includes decisions about whether or not the child should be resuscitated. To help the parents to make the best decisions, the nurse would have the ethical responsibility of providing comprehensive, current and complete information that allows the parents to make an informed decision. As medical professionals, nurses are uniquely qualified to offer medical advice.

What would you say to the child?

The terminally ill child would be informed that all is being done to ease his/her medical situation with medical resources being applied in the right way. This would help with giving the child hope, and making him/her more receptive to the medical treatment. All negative information would not be discussed with the child, and would instead be discussed with the parents.

How would you act?

I would act in a manner that observes the established nursing principles. This includes treating every person receiving nursing care with humanity and dignity, taking responsibility for the provided care and answering for actions and judgements, managing risks, and promoting and providing care that involves patients and puts them at the center. In addition, handling informative confidentially and sensitively, applying knowledge and skills to address needs of patients, collaborating with other medical personnel and stakeholders, and leading by example.

Do you have any personal experiences that have changed the way you think about the topic?

Although I do not have any personal experience with handling family decisions on patient resuscitation, I have watched parents struggle with such decisions. This is especially so what faced with the option of letting the child continue to live while suffering in sickness, or letting the child to die and getting relief from sickness. I have become more empathetic to parents facing similar decisions and believe that my position as a nurse is to provide the information that helps the family and patients make the right decisions.

What biases are you bringing to nursing care?

As a nurse, I bring preconceptions and stereotypical biases to nursing care. In providing care, I am faced with similar situations on a regular basis so that I become desensitized to the struggles that parents and patients face when making difficult care decisions. The second bias is the different knowledge levels whereby I assume that a patient knows what I know simply because I consider that basic information, and yet that may not necessarily be the case. The third bias is preconceptions about ethnic and racial identities and making assumptions that may hold true for a segment of the population and not necessarily hold true for the patient.

Reference

Stol, I. (2018). Ethical Dimensions of Caring Well for Dying Patients. AMA Journal of Ethics, 20(8), E678-682. https://doi.org/10.1001/amajethics.2018.678 .  Ethical Dilemmas in Caring for Terminally Ill Children Essay Paper