Moral Distress - Doctors and Nurses Forced to Do the Wrong Thing

In yesterday's N.Y. Times, Pauline Chen writes that "Doctors and nurses 'feel trapped' . . . by the competing demands of administrators, insurance companies, lawyers, patients’ families and even one another. . . .  And they are forced to compromise on what they believe is right for patients.”

This is moral distress — "knowing what is ethically appropriate but being unable to act on it because of obstacles inherent in a situation."  While not discussed in Chen's article, a number of studies confirm that the biggest source of moral distress for both nurses and physicians is being forced (by the law) to provide inappropriate end-of-life care.