Question:-

write a paper on Nursing Advocacy and Informed Consent

Answer:-

Advocacy is one of the most essential concept in Nursing practice, it is often utilised for describing the nurse client relationship. Advocacy for Nursing stems from a philosophy of Nursing in which Nursing practice is the support of a patient or individual with a aim of promoting his or her own wellbeing. On the other hand, Informed consent is the procedure in which a health care provider informs or educates a patient about the benefits, risks and alternatives of given intervention or procedure. In the report Advocacy and the process of informed consent will be discussed using "Veronica - a case study on ethics".

Advocacy in Nursing, has been defined as being representative of a patient, defending rights and universal rights of a patient, protecting the interests of the patient, contributing to decision making as well as supporting the decisions of the patient. The term advocacy, although, is subject to ambiguity of interpretation (Abbasinia, Ahmadi, & Kazemnejad, 2020). In simple words, Advocacy in Nursing refers to promoting patient equality, preserving human dignity and providing patient freedom from any sort of suffering or pain. In context to Nursing practices or profession advocacy is to ensure that patients have all the rights to make decisions about their own health. In the case of Veronica there were different situations where advocacy is present as well as absent. Advocacy is important in Nursing as it assist patients in making informed decisions related to their health, incorporating helping them negative a complex medical system, translating medical terms and assisting patients make ethical decisions. For instance, the first situation where advocacy was considered positively is when Nurse shepherd asked  Veronica, how she wants to get addressed. But there was mistake done by nurse shepherd even after knowing about the sexual orientation of Veronica she didn't informed her about the test they were doing and nurse shepherd also did not discussed anything with Dr. Mudge. This is a ethical practice that says that patient have a right to choose the way he or she want to be treated by the nurse or doctor. On the other hand, negative or another situation where advocacy was no considered is when Dr.Mudge gets irritated and says Veronica that she visited the care center without wearing like a man and has wasted the resources of ordering the pregnancy kit. Dr.Mudge was irritated after knowing that Veronica is a transgender and reacted violently. This is not at all ethical and advocacy is not at all present in this situation from the doctor. It's patient's right to get care without any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and a human right to wear what she wants to wear (Akyüz, Bulut & Karadağ, 2019). In addition to this, according to the patients rights Veronica had a right to keep her privacy.

Informed consent in Nursing refers to the choice of patient to have a treatment of procedure which is completely based upon  patient's full understanding of the procedure or treatment, its risks, its benefits and other alternative to the specific procedure or treatment (Buka, 2020). In the case of Veronica, she was not informed regarding the pregnancy test by the doctor or nurse. She was just asked how she wants to be addressed by Nurse shepherd but there was nothing discussed regarding the procedure regarding the test. On the other hand, after identifying a kidney store in left ureter that needs to be treated by a procedure called stent placement, Dr. Mudge handled the consent form to Veronica to sign. It demonstrates that the doctor was aware about informed consent process and explained Veronica about the treatment and procedure before beginning any treatment. Hence, there was a mixed approach followed by the doctor and nurse while examining Veronica. In some situation she was properly informed regarding the treatment or procedures and in other situation the was all of informed consent which is not ethical. It also demonstrates that patient's right to be informed or right to know was violated by the doctor.