Bioethical Decision Making in Nursing

FOURTH EDITION NAMED A 2013 DOODY'S CORE TITLE!

"This book provides a systematic approach to bioethical decision making, a process that can help clarify situations where right and wrong are not clearly defined. This [is] a valuable book for ethics and theory courses." Score: 100, 5 stars

--Doody's

More relevant today than ever, Husted's classic nursing ethics text provides a practical framework to help nurses engage with patients to make difficult ethical decisions. It delivers a systematic approach to bioethical decision making that can help clarify situations where "right" and "wrong" are not clearly defined. An abundance of case studies provides practice in bioethical decision making, with nearly 45 bioethical dilemmas analyzed in detail. The fifth edition has been reorganized and rewritten to facilitate increased readability and to engage readers more fully in learning. It includes two new chapters, Moral Distress and Nursing Practice Intersections: Legal Decision Making Within a Symphonological Ethical Perspective, additional case studies, and abundant tables, diagrams, and graphics that reinforce the text discussion. Instructor resources are also available for adopters of the text.

The book is grounded in the concept of "symphonia," which, within the health care arena, is the study of agreements between health care professionals and patients and the ethical implications of these agreements. It is intended to promote the welfare of both patient and health care provider. The new chapter on moral distress discusses futile care among other causes of moral distress and offers coping techniques for situations in which a nurse has an ethical issue with a standard of care but is powerless to change that care. The other new chapter, Nursing Practice Intersections: Legal Decision Making Within a Symphonological Ethical Perspective, focuses on situations that can be interpreted as either moral and illegal, or immoral and legal. The fifth edition also features a new section on ethical colleagueship, providing support to relieve common dilemmas among health care professionals.

NEW TO THE FIFTH EDITION:

• Reorganized and rewritten for ease of comprehension and increased reader engagement
• Includes two new chapters, Moral Distress and Nursing Practice Intersections: Legal Decision Making Within a Symphonological Ethical Perspective
• Provides more tables, diagrams, and graphics to clarify text discussion
• Provides objectives at the beginning of each chapter
• Expanded study guide at the end of each chapter
• Delivers new case studies that are analyzed in depth
• Includes four humorous scenarios in which the humor easily reveals the obvious from the obscure
• Addresses ethical colleagueship

Gladys L. Husted, RN, MSN, PhD, CNE, is Professor Emeritus of Nursing, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA.

Carrie J. Scotto, PhD, MSN, RN, is Associate Professor, University of Akron, College of Nursing, Ohio. She has worked in a variety of practice environments, most recently in ICU/CCU at Summa Western Reserve Hospital, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

Kimberly Michelle Wolf, PhD, MS, PMHCNS-BC, is Co-Program Director of the Psychiatric Mental Health Graduate Program at the University of North Dakota, and serves as an Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist at the Hennepin County Medical Center. She has been licensed as a CNS in Adult Psychiatric and Mental Health since 2004.

James H. Husted is an independent scholar.