The main health care professionals who take part or get involved in providing palliative care are care managers, physicians and nurses. These care givers help in making complex medical decisions and in the management of complicated signs and symptoms (Hui et al
And despite dedicating their time to helping these patients, they are not compensated in any way. The care they provide is despite health, economic, or even social implications for them and their families (Matzo & Sherman, 2009)
They can also be trained on how to effectively give prescribed drugs. The close family members, relatives and friends have to be properly trained to ensure that the care they give makes the patient as comfortable as possible (Merlin et al
This is not to say that costs and appearances are not important. However, quality of patient care and outcomes should not take a back seat to anything (Engel & Prentice, 2013)
To state the obvious, the ethical standards of differing people and professionals can differ. This paradigm and happenstance is presciently explained by Ewashen (2013) when she states "ethical inter-professional collaboration becomes especially relevant and necessary when inter-professional practice decisions are contested" (Ewashen, McInnis-Perry & Murphy, 2013)
Gary makes it clear what she is referring to. As noted at the onset of her report, "how nurses respond when faced with the dilemma of providing patient-centered care in the absence of patient-centered practice guidelines remains relatively unreported" (Gary, 2014)
Leaving a void and leaving nurses to fend for themselves and make palliative care calls is simply a bad idea all around. It reduces consistency and it reduces the focus on gaining the best outcomes for the patient even if that refers to pain experience immediately before death (Lennon-Dearing, Lowry, Ross & Dyer, 2009)
Palliative Care for Terminal and Non-Terminal Patients Although palliative care is sometimes viewed as a synonym for care for patients with terminal illnesses, a wide variety of different types of patients can benefit from palliative care. "Palliative care is an interdisciplinary medical specialty that focuses on preventing and relieving suffering and on supporting the best possible quality of life for patients and their families facing serious illness" (Meier, McCormick, & Arnold 2015)
Another strategy is by combating the fragmentation of care through coordinating the care process so that there is adequate communication and collaboration between health care providers as the disease progresses. This will ensure that the quality of life of the patient is improved while the healthcare is provided (Baker et
Since the staff is not trained for this act, stress and conflict tends to arise in such situations (Mohanti, 2009). The Physician in the team was against using euthanasia, while the rest of the team had no issue with it, in the palliative strategy because of several reasons he presented to the team; (1) he stated that euthanasia is wrong in its pure essence, violates professional integrity while also endangers the relationship between the patient and the physician; (2) this sends mixed messages to the public who are already misinformed about the issue; (3) it is a source of distress for both the family of the patient and the patient itself; (4) it is also a source of moral and emotional stress for the staff members; (5) and it places the entire team on the position of a gatekeeper between the family who disagrees with using euthanasia and the patient who wants to end his life through assisted suicide (Bigler, Jean-Michel, et al
(2) Allowing a person who is terminally ill, to end their life is a compassionate, rational and humane choice as they continue to suffer endlessly against their wish. The right to private life gives a choice to every person to end their life when they cannot suffer any further (Chand, 2009)
This can be due to external or internal issues, corporate issues or stresses. As the team grows larger in lobby groups, alliances and subgroups, several agendas come up, which distract the team from its actual purpose (Crawford & Price, 2003)
Through this numerous tests, prolonged hospitalization, and unnecessary procedures can be avoided. Many nations around the world have incorporated the DNR (do not resuscitate) policy into their palliative care (Mohanti, 2009)
(3) Several arguments have come in place that euthanasia shortens life, but according to a Dutch report in 1991, it was found out in eighty six percent of the cases that the life of the patients who opted for euthanasia was only shortened by maximum of a week or a few hours. It was their last escape from pain that was unbearable (Morris, 2013)
Communication and coordination of a team is very important and during meetings of the team, detailed information should be shared and every member should be on the same page. A stronger team requires common understanding and ideal of the contribution and the role of the team that each member makes to achieve successful results (Spruyt, 2011)
One challenge concerning leadership in the healthcare context is that a majority of theories were not formulated keeping healthcare in mind. Rather, they were created for mainstream businesses, and later utilized in healthcare settings (Al-Sawai, 2013)
Therefore, well-defined guidelines must be formulated for palliative care nursing leaders, and must function as a tool in making ethical decisions concerning resource allocation matters and, further, to integrate economically efficient activities, and superior care quality. Leaders have to ascertain that all employees are familiar with the organization's ethical code (Aitamaa et al
Such patients would continually be shifted between departments, which is, in fact, akin to abandonment. Patients and their families may feel desperate (Bigler, Jean-Michel, et al
Usually, however, this may mean granting precedence to the majority's needs over the needs of few. Healthcare leaders who can voice their opinions concerning ethical decisions (be it to team members, an ethical board, patients, or patient families) can handle the emotional challenges associated with ethically tough decisions more effectively (Lennon-Dearing, Lowry, Ross, & Dyer, 2009)
Ethical issues form an integral part of clinical practice and healthcare workers cannot escape them. However, in the present day, healthcare executives are required to manage ethical problems by taking a balanced perspective of the situation they face (McClellan, 2013)