What nurses can do when individuals and families are living with suffering

by | Mar 5, 2023 | Healthcare

 

 

1) Reflect on what nurses can do when individuals and families are living with suffering. Include a minimum of two citation/reference pairs in your response.
2) Review Standard 8 in the ANA: Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice. How does the role of advocacy fit with Quaternary Prevention?
3) Reflect on quaternary prevention. How does quaternary prevention ‘fit’ with Dr. Gwande’s views?
4) How does ‘informed risk’ fit with decision making?
5) Reflect on the ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, and maleficence. How to they ‘fit’ in situations of chronic illness?
For the future
Dr. Atul Gwande is a prominent neurosurgeon whose perspective on death and dying changed when his own father was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. Gwande’s work has been very well received and recognized over the last few years. When you have a bit of free time (maybe between semesters), I strongly recommend reading his book titled Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End – well worth your time!

 

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

Sample Solution

1) Nurses can help individuals and families living with suffering in many ways. According to the American Nurse Association (ANA, 2020), nurses should be “committed to promoting health, preventing illness, alleviating suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response and advocating for patients and their families” (p. 5). Additionally, nurses also play a critical role in providing psychosocial support such as providing education on resources available to cope with difficult emotions or helping to facilitate communication within family dynamics. ANA. (2020). Nursing scope and standards of practice. Silver Spring: Author.

Sample Solution

1) Nurses can help individuals and families living with suffering in many ways. According to the American Nurse Association (ANA, 2020), nurses should be “committed to promoting health, preventing illness, alleviating suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response and advocating for patients and their families” (p. 5). Additionally, nurses also play a critical role in providing psychosocial support such as providing education on resources available to cope with difficult emotions or helping to facilitate communication within family dynamics. ANA. (2020). Nursing scope and standards of practice. Silver Spring: Author.

2) Standard 8 of the ANA nursing Scope and Standards of Practice states that nurses “promote social justice through advocacy”; this includes advocating for access to care regardless of race, gender identity/expression, socio-economic status etc. When viewed through the lens Quaternary Prevention—which emphasizes addressing upstream causes rather than downstream effects such as disease—nurses have an important role in working towards improving patient outcomes by calling attention to any systemic issues limiting access or delivery healthcare services.(Holtzclaw & Knebel 2018). Holtzclaw M., & Knebel E..(2018). Primary Care: The art and science of advanced practice nursing(4th ed.). Philadelphia: FA Davis Company.

3) Dr Gwande\’s views emphasize a person-centered approach emphasizing quality-of-life when facing chronic illnesses instead viewing life merely extending it at all costs – something which is very much aligned with quaternary prevention strategies which prioritize addressing upstream factors leading/contributing to poor health outcomes as well as minimizing harm from medical interventions themselves whenever possible.(Holtzclaw & Knebel 2018). Holtzclaw M., & Knebel E..(2018). Primary Care: The art and science of advanced practice nursing(4th ed.). Philadelphia: FA Davis Company.

4) Informed risk taking involves weighing both potential benefits/beneficence along with potential risks/harm associated when making decisions regarding a particular action or course-of-treatment.(Keefe et al., 2020). This means that after carefully considering all available evidence, one must accept some degree uncertainty while understanding that even though certain choices may involve certain levels risk they still might be beneficial overall based on the individual situation Keefe FJ., Williams DA.. Cavanaugh JT.,Sommerville RK.(2020). Pain management principles(7th ed.). Burlington : Jones&Bartlett Learning.

5) Autonomy respect for an individual’s decision making capacity (Keefe et al., 2020); beneficence concerns doing good or avoiding causing harm; maleficence focuses on protecting against intentional acts intended cause harm Keefe FJ., Williams DA.. Cavanaugh JT.,Sommerville RK.(2020). Pain management principles(7th ed.). Burlington : Jones&Bartlett Learning These three ethical principles are closely intertwined when dealing with situations involving chronic illness since nurse must balance respecting autonomy while doing what is best for the patient – which may not always be easy given different perspectives held by various stakeholders involved

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