Ethics in Nursing

The primary focus of this text is theoretical. The introduction asks, "Why bother with ethics?" and considers the need to study ethics and historical codes of ethics. Subsequent chapters follow the life cycle with units on ethics and genetic birth control, abortion, neonatology, childhood, adults and the later years. Each chapter gives an historical overview of the subject, a summary of ethical issues, the nurse's role and case studies. Several chapters are selective in coverage, for example, the childhood chapter reviews children and research, child abuse and adolescent sexuality. The adult chapter considers distributive justice, scarce resources and sexual discrimination. The closing chapter, by Lucy Young Kelly, is on legal aspects of nursing, emphasising that the ethical and legal are not identical, but that they do overlap in their concerns. Kelly discusses patients' rights, informed consent, the right to die, confidentiality, assault and battery, the incompetent, the rights of nurses and so on.