간호 전문직의 의무적 선행의 범위 규정에 관한 연구: 구조의 의무를 중심으로

Abstract

Conflicts between healthcare professionals and patients are caused and aggravated by differences in views on healthcare professionals’ beneficence. Healthcare professionals may consider a certain beneficent act to be a recommendation, whereas the patient may consider the act to be an obligation that the healthcare professionals must follow. Healthcare professionals do not regard such acts to be an obligation; thus, healthcare professionals may not perform the act of beneficence. Patients who believe that the act is the healthcare professionals’ obligation may misunderstand and distrust their healthcare professional. It is necessary to establish the right concept for healthcare professionals’ beneficence; therefore, the distinction between obligatory beneficence and ideal beneficence must take precedence. In this paper, I argue that discussion on the obligatory beneficence of nurses should be required among healthcare professionals. Nursing is a profession that involves directly helping all individuals, homes, and communities; thus, nurses are forced to perform forms of beneficence outside the scope of their duties, including moral ideal forms. Failing to divide beneficence into moral ideals and obligations and emphasizing unlimited sacrifice and devotion to nurses can deteriorate the treatment of nurses and exhaust nurses with enthusiasm. In this paper, I critically reviewed the duty of rescue proposed by Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress within the nurse-patient relationship. I hypothesized that the duty of rescue can be used to define the scope of nurses’ obligatory beneficence. The duty of rescue consists of five individual conditions, which I examined in relation to the special nature of nurse-patient relationship. I applied the duty of rescue to the four hypothetical and practicable cases to confirm that it is possible to apply the duty of rescue to define obligatory beneficence among nursing professionals. I expect that identifying the nature of beneficence using the duty of rescue will present a feasible and sustainable nurse image and provide an opportunity to improve the therapeutic relationship between nurses and patients.