1. Socialization
To begin the process of socialization, having a clear
understanding of the definition of nursing is essential. We know
what nurses do, but how do we define nursing? Why is defining
nursing important? To answer this last question, defining
nursing is important for several reasons:To differentiate nursing
from other professions.To define our practiceTo provide
guidelines for nursing educationTo make nursing visible to the
public and policy makers
While there may be multiple definitions of nursing from
professional organization and state boards of nursing, similar
characteristics can be found in all of them.
The American Nurses Association offers the following
definition:
Nursing is the protection, promotion, and optimization of health
and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, facilitation of
healing, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and
treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of
individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations.
Knowing what nursing is, supports your move into the nursing
role. Socialization is the process of internalizing knowledge,
skills, attitudes and other concepts needed to function in a role.
You have been socialized into your current role. However, after
graduating with your BSN, there will be another socialization
process as you take on the broader role of the nurse with a BSN.
Another way of describing the socialization process is Patricia
Benner’s (1984) novice to expert stages. Some of you may be
familiar with Benner’s work through your facilities clinical
ladder. Socialization of the professional nurse involves
developing your knowledge and skills and interacting with other
nurses who act as mentors. Throughout the education process,
students encounter a variety of socializing agents, including
faculty, classmates, colleagues and other healthcare
professionals, patients, and family, who subsequently contribute

2. to the formation of a professional self-identify (Lai & Lim,
2012, p. 32).
Instructions
You are a licensed practice nurse (LPN) collaborating with a
registered nurse (RN) for hospital-wide in-service on healthcare
associated infections (HAI). After the in-service, a
representative from each hospital department will receive an
infographic to post in their respective unit. Your job is to create
an infographic on preventing HAIs. The infographic should:
· Be a one-page visual representation of about Healthcare
Associated Infections (HAIS)
· Identify common types of HAIs (healthcare associated
infections)
· Include data or statistics about HAIs
· Describe prevention strategies for HAIs
Nursing Ethics
The Code of Ethics for Nurses of 2015, given by American
Nurses Association (ANA), outlines the ethical basis for the
nursing profession. It contains nine provisions, which cover the
nurses' responsibilities toward the patients, maintenance of their
personal professional growth, and their responsibilities to the
profession and community.
Contemporary nurses face many ethical dilemmas in their
nursing practice. Numerous examples related to ethical issues
occur everyday in nursing practice. Nurses must have a plan for
making ethical decisions. Through the use of ethical theories
and principles, nurses can make decisions based on respect for
people.
Ethical theoriesDeontology – concerned with the end results,
ends justifies the meansUtilitarianism – concerned with rules,
policies, standardsVirtue ethics – focuses on the moral character
of the person actingPrincipalism – following ethical principles

3. Ethical principlesAutonomy – self-determinationBeneficence –
doing goodNonmaleficence – doing no harmJustice -
fairnessFidelity – honoring commitmentsVeracity – truth-
telling
Incorporating the theories and principles with a framework
provides the nurse with a platform to evaluate and respond to
ethical issues. There are a number of frameworks available to
support the nurse in resolving ethical issues, one example is
listed below. Steps you can take when dealing with ethical
issues:Identify the issue.Gather information.Identify the persons
who will be affected by any decisions to be taken.List the
different courses of action in this situation.Evaluate the
advantages and disadvantages of each course of action.Make the
decision after weighing all the alternatives.
Additional Materials
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Ethical Decision Making
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Values and Beliefs
It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values
are.

4. —Roy Disney, American Film Writer, Producer
Should you alter a nursing procedure to accommodate a patient's
personal belief? What if you
know the accommodation will hinder healing? How do you talk
to a terminally ill patient about
dying? At what level should you connect with your patients?
Professional nursing life is faced
with delicate decisions each day. The nurse is the patient's
prime point of contact with the
healthcare system; the nurse must constantly take quick and
decisive action in varied situations.
This becomes easier when you know what your values are.
These values may be the common
values of the profession, or they may arise from individual
conviction—together they form a
unified belief system that guides you in your professional
choices.
The broad values of the nursing profession are outlined in the
ANA's social policy statement.
The statement delineates overriding values of the profession
that all nurses should know,
understand, and uphold.
Beyond the broad values of the profession, nurses face more
specific value questions every day

5. on the job. These questions often concern critical issues. For
example, should a severely
premature infant who is significantly impaired be kept alive
with life support? In such instances,
nurses help families and patients deal with decisions of life and
death.
As a nurse, you may often have to deal with the fact that your
patients may choose to not change
their unhealthy lifestyles despite the provided counseling.
Moreover, patients and their families
often have divergent views on how much information they or
their loved ones should have
access to. Such situations may challenge your values and beliefs
as a nurse.
To be constructive and unbiased with patients, you must have a
clear understanding of your
personal values and beliefs and the background and experiences
that shape your personal value
and belief system. This will help you interact positively in a
supportive manner with patients and
their families who may have value systems contrary to your
own. The process of interaction is
known as the interpersonal relationship. Each person influences
the other and raises emotions

6. and thoughts. Being aware of this process is crucial to the
nurse-patient relationship.
Personal understanding prevents you from unintentionally
imposing your personal values on the
nurse-patient relationship, which is essential in providing
nonjudgmental care. In providing care,
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http://nursingworld.org/social-policy-statement
nurses also need to understand the Patient's Bill of Rights,
which supports the basic nursing
values and beliefs. This bill focuses on the patient's rights in
the areas of information disclosure,
provider choice, access to emergency services, participation in
treatment decisions, respect and
nondiscrimination, confidentiality, and the right to complaints
and appeals. With the introduction
of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), healthcare and delivery will
see continued changes.
Legal Aspects of Nursing

7. © 2017 South University
HIPAA and Patient Confidentiality
HIPAA mainly encompasses two rules—The Privacy Rule and
the Security Standard Rule. The
Privacy Rule (Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable
Health Information) regulates
the use and disclosure of PHI. Medical records of patient with a
mental illness may require
additional safety measures under the law. According to Gates,
Moore & Company (2002), the
Privacy Rule has three essential purposes:
• To protect the rights of patients by providing access to their
PHI and the ability to
control the use and disclosure of it
• To restore public trust in the healthcare delivery system
• To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare
delivery in the US by
creating a national framework of healthcare privacy
The Privacy Rule states that PHI can only be used and disclosed
for treatment, payment, or
healthcare operations without a patient authorization. Any other
uses require patient autho-
rization before the PHI is released. The rule also generally
limits the release of information to
the minimum necessary for the purpose of the disclosure so that
irrelevant information is not

8. released. The limitation of only releasing the minimum
necessary information does not apply
when the PHI is disclosed to another practitioner for direct
treatment. The rules make allow-
ances for public health responsibilities to allow the collection
of information to prevent or
control disease, injury, and disability, including public health
surveillance, investigation, and
intervention. The HIPAA limitations do not apply to
information that is de-identified so that
the patients cannot be connected with their PHI.
Privacy Rules
Beyond limiting the practitioner’s ability to use or disclose PHI
without a patient’s authori-
zation, the Privacy Rule gives patients more control over their
health information. The first
step in providing the patient with more control is the mandatory
requirement of healthcare
providers to provide the patient with a copy of their “Notice of
Privacy Practices.” The Notice of
Privacy Practices outlines for the patient their rights to privacy
and how their personal health
information will be routinely used for treatment, payment, and
healthcare operations within
the healthcare setting. The provider must also obtain a written
acknowledgment from the
patient that he or she received a copy of the notice (Conklin,
2001).
If the PHI must be released for purposes other
than treatment, payment, or healthcare oper-
ations, it requires a signed authorization from

9. the patient. This enables patients to make
informed choices about how their individual
health information may be used or disclosed.
The HIPAA privacy rules go beyond mandating
an authorization for release of information—it
requires tracking the disclosures of PHI. As a
result, patients can find out how their health
information
has been used or released. Patients also have
the right to obtain a copy of their medical
record and can review, correct, or amend
the PHI. There are policies and procedures in
place for patient review, correction, or amend-
ment of PHI. Patients can make corrections or
amendments to the health record only with
their physician’s approval.
Reference:
US Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Summary
of HIPAA privacy rule. Retrieved from http://
www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for- professionals/privacy/laws-
regulations/index.html
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Legal Aspects of Nursing