Patient Advocacy and Professional Associations: individual and collective responsibilities

Nursing Ethics 12 (3):296-304 (2005)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Professions have traditionally treated advocacy as a collective duty, best assigned to professional associations to perform. In North American nursing, advocacy for issues affecting identifiable patients is assigned instead to their nurses. We argue that nursing associations’ withdrawal from advocacy for patient care issues is detrimental to nurses and patients alike. Most nurses work in large institutions whose internal policies they cannot influence. When these create obstacles to good care, the inability of nurses to affect change can result in avoidable distress for them and for their patients. We illustrate this point with a case study: the circumstances of the death of Michael Joseph LeBlanc, an inmate at Kingston Penitentiary Regional Hospital (Ontario). We conclude that patients and their nurses will suffer unnecessarily unless or until nursing associations cease to burden individual nurses with the responsibility for patient advocacy

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 78,003

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-11-02

Downloads
19 (#596,794)

6 months
1 (#484,784)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jennifer Welchman
University of Alberta

References found in this work

The Nurse as Patient Advocate.Ellen W. Bernal - 1992 - Hastings Center Report 22 (4):18-23.

Add more references