The ethical dilemmas of nursing

Abstract

OVER RECENT DECADES, the health consumer voice has risen in significance and receives considerable space in the popular media. No longer are patients, relatives of patients or ordinary citizens just silent witnesses to how services for health and illness are structured and managed. Health and illness care can no longer be regarded as solely the province of the industry, its professionals, managers and bureaucrats. Megan-Jane Johnstone?s new, fourth edition of her popular Bioethics ? a nursing perspective is therefore timely. It is up-to-date in the changing and demanding political economy of the Australian health care system and current in its bioethical discourse. This is an essential text for nurses, who comprise the biggest component of carers in the industry and are the only practitioners providing immediate face-to-face, twenty-four hour care. Now, more than ever before, nurses must be aware of the bioethical implications of their actions, decisions and non-decisions.