ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses 2025 Provision 1

 ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses 2025 

Provision 1: The nurse practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, and unique attributes of every person. 

The post today will focus on the inherent dignity of patients. This idea of dignity came through loud and clear in the stories told to me by nurses while completing phenomenological interviews for my dissertation research. The nurses I interviewed spoke about treating patients with dignity, especially in the face of death. (Please refer to my ethics model below the post.) 

One story that stuck out to me was from a nurse that stayed in the room talking with a patient while working night shift.  This patient had cancer and was out of all viable treatment options. The only choice now was to be a part of a new drug trial.  The patient did not want to do the trial, but his wife and daughter wanted him to, as his daughter was scheduled to get married the following year. They so desperately wanted for him to still be alive to walk his daughter down the aisle. 

The nurse sat at the patient's bedside debating the choices (to do the trial or to not do the trial) with him. The nurse spent many hours in there, with the patient, talking and debating, the possible choices. The part that impacted me was the nurse's statement, "And we stayed up all night and we talked, and we were debating, and I found myself really questioning, ‘Am I doing the right thing?"

 The nurse felt, as if in their conversation, he was trying to talk the patient out of doing the trial. I guess, in a way, some may argue that the nurse was advocating for his patient because the nurse knew the patient did not really want to be part of this trial. I say advocating because the nurse was educating the patient so he could make his own decision. But the nurse did wonder if he did the right thing.  He probably felt this way because maybe he was presenting one choice in a more favorable light than the other choice to this patient. So, is this advocacy? education? respecting the patient's inherent dignity? I feel, that perhaps, this can be debated on both sides. 

I firmly believe that our role, as nurses, is to educate our patients so they may make their own informed decisions. I tell students this all of the time. It's a wonderful opportunity when we can advocate for and educate our patients. In this case, was the nurse advocating for the patient by educating him to make his own decision? Or was the nurse advocating for the treatment he felt was best for this patient? This is where an ethical dilemma may begin. 

As nurses we want to do the right thing for our patients. But does this desire to do the right thing for our patients blur with virtue ethics? Can our actions be right or wrong? or a combination of both? How do we honor the inherent dignity of our patients? 

As always, I would love to hear from others. Please share your welcome thoughts.

References

American Nurses Association (ANA). (2025). Code of ethics for nurses. Silver Spring, MD: Nursesbooks.org.   

McLaughlin, M. A. S. (2018, April 5). The Siciliano-McLaughlin Model of Ethics. The Ethical Nurse. https://theethicalnurse.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-siciliano-mclaughlin-model-of-ethics.html

McLaughlin, M. A. S. (2016). The experience of accelerated nursing program graduates utilizing ethics in their nursing practice (Publication No. 10195870) [Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.