Can Nurses Contribute to Better End-of-Life Care?
In this article I will argue that futile medical and nursing care is not only inefficacious but that it may be harmful to the patient and also to health professionals, who may be diminished both as clinicians and as persons if they are not able to give appropriate care to dying patients and their fa...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
2000
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| In: |
Nursing ethics
Year: 2000, Volume: 7, Issue: 2, Pages: 134-140 |
| Further subjects: | B
‘medical futility’
B adult and neonatal intensive care B end-of-life care |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In this article I will argue that futile medical and nursing care is not only inefficacious but that it may be harmful to the patient and also to health professionals, who may be diminished both as clinicians and as persons if they are not able to give appropriate care to dying patients and their families. I discuss futile care in intensive care units because the opportunities and the temptation to provide futile care in these settings is higher than, for instance, in internal medicine and nursing home care. I argue, following two nurse ethicists, Carol Taylor and Colleen Scanlon, that, even if nurses are not the initiators of futile care, they play an important role in its prevention because of their clinical expertise. They can do this by convening ‘patient care conferences’ when they recognize the need to bring together the various parties that have conflicting expectations. These conferences would then result in appropriate palliative care. The nurses providing this care would demonstrate their understanding of the process whereby living becomes the process of dying. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-0989 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Nursing ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/096973300000700206 |