Nurse’s Professional Role in Advocating for Others Essay

The aim of this assignment is to research legal, ethical and professional issues in order to discuss the nurse’s professional role in advocating for others, and also to look at how personal knowledge, skills, values and beliefs contribute to a nurse’s professional development and identity. Firstly, it will consider advocacy and how legal, ethical and professional issues shape the nurse’s role. Nurse’s Professional Role in Advocating for Others Essay

Advocacy has been argued to be a fundamental aspect of nursing, it is reinforced by the current codes of conduct, as well as codes of ethics and competency standards that govern nursing practice. Advocacy has been defined as the ‘means by which individuals can be empowered to express their opinion’ (Gallagher et al. 2012, p. 71). There are three main models of advocacy that were discussed by Fry and Johnstone (2008), these are the ‘rights patient protection’ model, the ‘value-based’ decision model and the ‘respect-for-persons’ model. Each of these models interprets advocacy in a different way, but one key similarity is that each model looks at the best interest for the patients in their individual ways. The ‘rights patient protection’ model is where the nurse defends the patient’s rights, the ‘values-based’ decision model looks at the nurse helping the patient to discuss their needs, interests and choices without the nurse imposing their own personal opinions on the patient, and finally the ‘respect-for-persons’ model, here the nurse looks at the patient as a fellow human being who is entitled to respect. Nurse’s Professional Role in Advocating for Others Essay