Assignment 1 NURS 6512: Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostic Reasoning

                 Assignment 1 NURS 6512: Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostic Reasoning

                                       Week 11: The Ethics Behind Assessment

As an advanced practice nurse, you will run into situations where a patient’s wishes about his or her health conflict with evidence, your own experience, or a family’s wishes. This may create an ethical dilemma. What do you do when these situations occur?

In this Lab Assignment, you will explore evidence-based practice guidelines and ethical considerations for specific scenarios.

To Prepare

CASE STUDY B

A 57-year-old man who was diagnosed with motor neuron disease 2 years ago is

experiencing a rapid decline in his condition. He prefers to be admitted to the in-patient

unit at a hospice to receive end-of-life care, but his wife wants him to remain at home.

Select scenario above and reflect on the material presented throughout this course.

What necessary information would need to be obtained about the patient through health assessments and diagnostic tests?

Consider how you would respond as an advanced practice nurse. Review evidence-based practice guidelines and ethical considerations applicable to the scenarios you selected.

The Lab Assignment

Write a detailed one-page narrative (not a formal paper) explaining the health assessment information required for a diagnosis of your selected patient (include the scenario number). Explain how you would respond to the scenario as an advanced practice nurse using evidence-based practice guidelines and applying ethical considerations. Justify your response using at least three different references from current evidence-based literature.

Consider the following scenarios:

You are a nurse at a large county hospital. One of your patients is leaning toward selecting a certain radical treatment for cancer, to which the family is in opposition. The family is concerned about making the correct decision and asks for your advice.

Throughout this course, you have explored a wide range of health assessments and abnormal examination findings. Although you have predominantly focused on the procedural aspects of health assessment, this week, you will focus on ethical considerations that should be taken into account when advising patients or their families.

This week, you will consider how evidence-based practice guidelines and ethical considerations factor into health assessments. You will also evaluate health assessment concepts related to sports physicals and well-child and well-woman examinations.