Is It Ethical for a Nurse to Decline the H1N1 Vaccine?

By Douglas Olsen, PhD, RN. Olsen is an AJN contributing editor who co-coordinates the journal’s Ethical Issues department and a nurse ethicist with the National Center for Ethics in Health Care at the Veterans Health Administration in Washington, DC. The views he expresses here are meant to stimulate discussion of this topic and not to serve as pronouncements guiding what nurses should or shound not do. The views are his alone and should not be construed as representing those of AJN or of the National Center for Ethics in Health Care or the Veterans Health Administration.

MailOnlineFluJabScreenshotPublic health experts advocate widespread flu vaccination for people who give direct care to patients. However, in the past less than 40% of health care workers have been vaccinated for flu, and in a recent Nursing Times survey from the UK 30% of nurses said they would decline H1N1 vaccine and only 37% said “Yes” they would take the vaccine. Here are some thoughts on how to sort out the question from an ethical perspective.

Nurses, as patients, should be accorded the same respect for their decisions about health care, including the right to refuse a treatment, that is due to all patients. In ethics this is called respect for patient autonomy.

Professional obligation. However, nurses have a professional obligation to do […]

2016-11-21T13:23:00-05:00August 26th, 2009|career, Ethics, infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|28 Comments
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Nurse Ethicist Weighs in on Nurses Who May Have Helped Merck Hawk Vioxx

By wonker, via Flickr. By wonker, via Flickr.

According to a story in The Australian, the drug company Merck has been accused of paying nurses to sift through patient medical records in search of potential candidates for the drug Vioxx.  Here’s what nurse ethicist Douglas Olsen, who recently wrote a two-part article (here’s part one; part two is here) for AJN on nurses and the pharmaceutical industry, wrote to us about the story:

The news report demonstrates the public’s visceral sense that the Merck program in Australia was unethical. Nurses, as well as doctors and pharmacists, can anticipate righteous indignation whenever their clinical deliberations appear compromised by a company’s desire to sell a particular drug. […]

2016-11-21T13:28:15-05:00May 19th, 2009|Ethics, Nursing, patient safety, Public health|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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