The Nursing clinics of North America
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Contemporary nursing ethics education focuses on the use of an analytical model of ethical decision making for both its process and its content. Perhaps this is the case because it bears some resemblance to the nursing process, which is taught in a similar fashion. Thus, a deductivist method of ethical decision making fits within the same general schema of the hypotheticodeductive method of decision making that is taught for nursing diagnosis. ⋯ Whatever the strength of our science, nursing is an inherently moral endeavor and is only as strong as its commitment to its ethical obligations and values. Between the grinding edges of the forces that affect it, nursing must establish its priorities among the aspects of its environment that it attempts to control. Ethics must be chief among those priorities.
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The laws pertaining to organ donation and transplantation are new, innovative, and rapidly evolving. Over the past 9 years, the field has become increasingly legislated and regulated, more formalized, and more organized. Heart transplant centers must be certified in order to receive Medicare funding. ⋯ However, many patients die in hospitals under circumstances permitting organ donation, and their families are never approached. Perhaps the 1987 amendments to the UAGA, once accepted by more states, will afford greater flexibility and a corresponding increase in donorship. If the spirit of cooperation fails, transplant programs and OPOs may be forced to request meaningful sanctions for noncompliance.
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The critical care nurse is a vital link in the referral of organ donors and, thus, is the determining factor in the number of patients that will receive organ transplants. The process of referring a potential donor to OPOs should be as convenient as possible. ⋯ Donor families have repeatedly stated that having the option of organ donation offered to them at one of their most difficult times helped them take something positive away from their loved one's death. This option can occur only when the critical care nurse is an active participant in the organ procurement process.