moral courage in healthcare
45,000 of us will die each year because of a lack of healthcare. It is no secret that patients get hurt when receiving health care. This is a moral outrage, a moral disgrace and a moral ineptitude that is no longer tolerable. According to WHO, one in ten patients are harmed whilst receiving health care and 43 MILLION patient safety incidents happen every year around the world. What Is Moral Courage? Nurses need moral courage in all areas and at all levels of nursing. In Seattle, epidemiologist Dr. Helen Chu demonstrated great moral courage by reporting critical data to health officials despite instructions from federal officials to remain silent. It is the ability to endure distress inherent in difficult situations when a nurse needs to do what is right. Moral courage is seen as a critical virtue for nurses and crucial to safe and professional practice. In many situations, moral courage shown by a nurse becomes instrumental in saving and shaping a patient’s life. In a health care facility where all hopes of an individual’s life and death are trusted in the hands of the health care personnel, negligent and dishonorable … Lachman considers the most frequent issues in which nurses must exert moral courage are end-of-life situations, including advanced directives and informed consent. She added other common scenarios are bullying among healthcare staff and social media situations. Nevertheless, what the concept of moral courage means in nursing contexts remains ambiguous. In an article out last week, bioethicicsts Alyssa Burgart and Holly Tabor discuss the recent Covid-19 outbreak and the moral courage shown by frontline healthcare professionals. Table 2 presents critical checkpoints to assist healthcare professionals demonstrate moral courage in healthcare settings. Areas where moral courage issues arise include clinical practice, research and academia. Moral courage involves standing up for your values, ethics, and beliefs, even at the risk of your reputation, emotional anxiety, social isolation, or employment. Table 2. Moral courage is depicted by those individuals who, despite adversity and professional risk in their line of work, decide to act upon their ethical values even during challenging ethical dilemmas (Khoshmehr et al., 2020). My colleagues and I in hospice and home health settings are entering patients’ homes to keep them out of overcrowded hospitals and ensure good symptom management and support. Along with new interest in virtue ethics in healthcare, interest in moral courage as a virtue and a valued element of human morality has increased. We live in the wealthiest nation on Earth -- the wealthiest nation in the history of the world -- and millions of our citizens can't see a doctor. Demonstrating moral courage when confronted with ethical misconduct is critical to good professional practice whether in a clinical setting, the classroom, a research laboratory, or the boardroom (Day, 2009). Moral courage, or “the ability to take action for moral reasons, despite the risk of adverse consequences ” has been paramount to the response to this outbreak. The need for moral courage in the healthcare sector arises when people have to choose one out of their moral and ethical values and the negative consequences of following their values. If we define moral courage as a willingness to put one’s self in harm’s way in order to do what’s right, these are today’s moral exemplars. They may also worry about being bullied by their co-workers. According to Murray (2007), understanding the importance of moral courage aids healthcare leaders to demonstrate moral courage when they face ethical challenges and the creation of an ethical environment. 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