Using the reading and the questionnaire, write a paper of 750-1,000 words in which you
describe your professional moral compass. As you write your paper, include the following:
1.What personal, cultural, and spiritual values contribute to your worldview and
philosophy of nursing? How do these values shape or influence your nursing practice?
2.Define values, morals, and ethics in the context of your obligation to nursing practice.
Explain how your personal values, philosophy, and worldview may conflict with your
obligation to practice, creating an ethical dilemma.
3.Reflect and share your own personal thoughts regarding the morals and ethical dilemmas
you may face in the health care field. How do your personal views affect your behavior and
your decision making?
Professional moral compass
Different professionals vary in terms of the qualities and attributes expected from the
work. Furthermore, codes of ethics that guide the performance of tasks across different
professionals may not be necessarily same. This paper focuses on my professional moral
compass.
An individual personal, cultural, and spiritual value play a great role in shaping the
worldview and as well, the philosophy of nursing. I am an individual that like socializing and
treating others the way I could also want to be treated. I have appreciated that we have different
cultures, beliefs and norms but this does not have to hinder the way I treat my fellow human
beings. The language I speak and the belief system may not be similar but my nursing
philosophy has always remained to promote better living and health. Furthermore, I believe in a
powerful/supernatural being who gives me life and who requires that I live according to
predefined manner (Hunt, 2011). I have therefore, learned to respect all the people that I come
across with. This has also helped in defining my nursing philosophy whereby I aspire to ensure
well-being of the people that I meet. I take my patient as whole persons –that have body, mind
and spirit in promoting their wellbeing and healing. These values have continued to shape my
PROFESSIONAL MORAL COMPASS 2
nursing practice as a practitioner for many years. I believe that I have been given this opportunity
to impact on the life of people. I therefore execute my duties with diligent, passion and with the
major aim of restoring hope among my patients. My happiness is to see my patients leading a
positive and a healthy live. I also accept and respect the uniqueness of my patients and their
worldviews or beliefs.
In my context to nursing practice, values are my personal/internal reference of what I
feel to be good, useful, beneficial and desirable. These values generate behaviors, which allow
me to render services that I deem appropriate. For instance, I cannot ignore to attend to a patient
that requires my attention because I value life. I therefore would not wish to see a patient suffer
in my hands and therefore will always try to do something that I deem appropriate to arrest the
situation. Morals in this context are defined in terms of the motives of the actions, which may be
good or bad (De Villers & DeVon, 2013). In my practice, I am obliged to take morally
acceptable actions. It is immoral to prescribe wrong medication to a patient because this act is
not expected. Ethics allows me to abide by the set rules and regulations that govern my
professional. In my practice, I always ensure that I respect my patients and my colleagues as I
render my services. The decisions I make I ensure that they are in consistent with the
organizations set of codes of conduct.
However, in some occasions, these values, philosophy and worldviews may conflict with
my obligation leading to an ethical dilemma. One of the ways this may occur is when I am
handling a patient with different ideologies about treatment or health. Some of the ethnics groups
or races have different values systems that may be different from mine in terms of healthcare and
this may create an ethical dilemma (Lillemoen & Pedersen, 2013). Another situation is when I
PROFESSIONAL MORAL COMPASS 3
have different religious believes which leads to different perspectives and approach to
healthcare. Such situations will automatically lead to ethical dilemma.
As a practitioner, I am likely to experience various morals and ethical dilemmas in the
healthcare field. One of this is conflict of interest whereby I may want to sell some of my
medical products to the hospital or may want to get favors such as contracts that is likely to
affect my relationship with the hospital as well as my patients. Another ethical dilemma is
balancing between profit with serving patients and providing charity care, and dealing with
patients that may not be in a position to make decisions on their own in circumstances where
they need to so such as end of live. In such circumstances, personal views may be used affecting
my behavior and decision-making. The personal view will be based on the quest to ensure that
the patient healthy is enhanced. Therefore, in such circumstances it becomes important to
understand the circumstances or the consequences of the decision. In my case, my personal view
will mostly tend to approach or make decisions based on morals and ethical standards that
govern me in my service delivery.
In conclusion, in nursing practices, personal, values, belief, culture, and spiritual values
impact on the nursing philosophy and practice. They also impact on the quality of healthcare
provided. It is therefore prudent for healthcare practitioners to always endeavor to adhere to
morals, ethics and values that enhance delivery of quality healthcare.
PROFESSIONAL MORAL COMPASS 4
References
De Villers, M., & DeVon, H. (2013). Moral distress and avoidance behavior in nurses working in
critical care and noncritical care units. Nursing Ethics, 20(5): 589-603.
Hunt, M. (2011). Establishing moral bearings: ethics and expatriate health care professionals in
humanitarian work. Disasters, 35(3):606-622.
Lillemoen, L., & Pedersen, R. (2013). Ethical challenges and how to develop ethics support in
primary health care. Nursing Ethics, 20(1): 96-108.