On Ethical Short-Term Medical Missions: An Argument from Experience

“In the absence of clearly articulated intentions and approaches, how can we be sure that short-term medical missions won’t have unintended long- or short-term consequences?”

Garrett Matlick

That’s the central question posed by Garrett Matlick’s Viewpoint essay, “Short-Term Medical Missions: Toward an Ethical Approach,” in the April issue of AJN. Matlick, currently enrolled in the Family Nurse Practitioner/Master of Public Health Program at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, had an opportunity to observe short-term medical missions (STMMs) that succeeded as well as some that failed.

What works and what doesn’t?

Having considered the current paucity of quality research on STMMs and their effects, Matlick both calls for more rigorous future research and offers a few basic considerations that he believes should be applied to all STMMs that offer direct care to local communities. His case is immensely strengthened by the use of multiple real world examples he observed or participated in while in Cambodia.

AJN sometimes receives Reflections essay submissions from nursing students and others about their experiences in STMMs in various countries. (Unlike the Viewpoint column discussed in this post, Reflections essays tend to focus more on personal reflections and story than on making an argument.) Some submissions reflect a nuanced awareness of limitations and benefits […]

2018-04-11T11:53:31-04:00April 11th, 2018|Ethics, nursing students, Public health|0 Comments
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Honoring the Moral Concerns of Caregivers Afraid of Giving Morphine

Joan’s breathing relaxes as the morphine starts working. Her son Travis, on the other hand, is clearly upset as we sit at her bedside where she is dying. Despite his mother’s intense respiratory distress before he gave her the morphine, he’s convinced that he’s just made a big mistake. “I’m sorry, mama,” he whispers.

He turns his head my way. “I wish you hospice folks had never brought that morphine out here,” he says. “Now she’s dead for sure and it’s my fault.”

A sometimes essential medication.

For caregivers with this level of fear about morphine, it’s a painful dilemma. If you don’t use the best, sometimes the only, medication we have for getting acute respiratory distress in terminally ill patients under control, both patient and caregiver suffer. But if giving morphine is freighted, as it is for Travis, with a belief that it causes death and/or signifies giving up on, even betraying, a loved one, it can intensify a caregiver’s distress.

The hospice nurse had already given the standard education, assuring Travis that in patients near the end of life morphine is safe and effective when used as prescribed. We had given him written information debunking some of the common myths about morphine—“it kills you”; “makes you crazy”; “it’s addictive”—when used appropriately with hospice patients who have active symptoms. We had […]

2018-01-22T10:19:38-05:00January 22nd, 2018|Ethics, family caregiving, Nursing, pain management|0 Comments
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A Closer Look at the Joint Commission’s New Guidelines for Pain Assessment and Management

Photo © Burger / Phanie / Science Photo Library.

Starting on January 1, 2018, the Joint Commission’s new and revised pain assessment and management standards for accredited hospitals will go into effect. Notably, the guidelines—as we report in a November news article—address safe opioid prescribing practices.

Among new requirements, the Joint Commission says hospitals should:

  • Designate a leader or team responsible for pain management and safe opioid prescribing.
  • Include patients in developing a pain management treatment plan—including realistic expectations and measurable goals—and educate them on discharge plans related to opioid adverse effects and safe use, storage, and disposal of opioids.
  • Use prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) databases to identify patients at risk for opioid addiction.
  • Identify opioid addiction treatment programs for patient referrals.
  • Inform staff about consultation and referral services available for patients with complex pain management needs.
  • Collect and analyze data on pain assessment and management to identify areas in which safety and quality could be improved.

The full list of new and revised guidelines is available here. How might these changes affect life for nurses and patients? Comments are welcome below.

2017-12-13T15:23:52-05:00November 17th, 2017|Nursing, pain management, patient experience|8 Comments
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Brain Injury. Undocumented Patient. Who Decides About Treatment?

When an unauthorized immigrant suffers a brain injury, who decides when treatment is withdrawn? An ethical dilemma touches on issues of clinician autonomy and justice versus patient and family autonomy.

© Photolibrary Wales/ Albany Stock Photo.

Imagine that someone you love—a young person—suddenly collapses and is rushed to the hospital. Her heart is restarted, but it soon becomes apparent that there has been extensive anoxic brain injury. In a vegetative state, on a ventilator, no ability to follow commands, spastic extremities, an EEG showing continuous seizure activity. . . . and this person is an undocumented immigrant. And uninsured.

In this month’s AJN, Kimberly Radtke and Marianne Matzo present a fictional case (based on their real-life experience in palliative care) to illustrate the ways in which this kind of scenario might play out. The parents are overwhelmed, trying to make decisions while they are still in shock. Physicians soon express their concerns about prolonging “medically inappropriate care.” And who will pay for it?

In addition, hospitalization due to critical illness increases an unauthorized immigrant’s risk of repatriation without their consent. What must the family be feeling as they struggle to understand their daughter’s future?

The role of the ethics committee.

Radtke and Matzo discuss […]

2017-11-17T15:19:22-05:00November 13th, 2017|Ethics, Nursing|0 Comments
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Workarounds May Work, But They Perpetuate Dysfunction

Photo © Associated Press

A couple of months ago, we posted a query on Facebook asking visitors to the page if they had ever used workarounds—the improvised shortcuts that may not be the standard practice or the policy, but may allow for more efficient work processes. We were amazed at the uniformity of the responses. No one saw a problem with workarounds, and most responded along the lines of “I love my workarounds—couldn’t do my job without them” and “I’ll never tell—keep hands off my workarounds.”

Nothing new.

Workarounds have probably been around since Florence Nightingale’s day—I can imagine one of her nurses at Scutari hiding lamp oil so she’d have enough to make rounds at night. In my early nursing days, we hid sheets so we’d have some in case we needed an extra bed change for a patient. When I worked in the ER of a busy city hospital, we kept a pretty large supply of IV fluids and medications on hand in a closet. It became a well-known secret that the ER had its own stockpile—in fact, there were occasions when the pharmacy would come to us for meds!

Today, the workarounds I hear about tend to revolve around dealing with the electronic health record and scanning medication bar codes.

Some cautions.

In […]

2017-10-18T09:59:23-04:00October 18th, 2017|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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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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