Code Gray: Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing is a 1984 short documentary film directed by Joan Sawyer. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
This documentary shows four actual situations where nurses confront difficult ethical decisions, as they balance the often contradictory views of patients, family members, and other staff about what is best for their patients.
Case 1: A newborn with probably fatal birth defects that is a ward of the state is in the Neonatal ICU and nurses must decide what level of care represents benefiecence, or "doing good."
Case 2: The staff in a nursing home must decide between respecting a patient's autonomy and the need to restrain her to prevent injury.
Case 3: The nurses in an ICU make daily decisions about allocation of nursing resources and bed according to the principles of justice.
Case 4: A nurse caring for a terminally ill patient faces a conflict between fidelity to her commitment to relieve suffering and the promise made to the patient's family.
Famous quotes containing the words code, ethical and/or nursing:
“Many people will say to working mothers, in effect, “I don’t think you can have it all.” The phrase for “have it all” is code for “have your cake and eat it too.” What these people really mean is that achievement in the workplace has always come at a price—usually a significant personal price; conversely, women who stayed home with their children were seen as having sacrificed a great deal of their own ambition for their families.”
—Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)
“All expression of truth does at length take this deep ethical form.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one’s melancholy.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)