Fine Lines of Nurse Advocacy

Laurie Amons
NU-200
Prof. Eliadi
November 14,
Role Research Paper


The Fine Lines of Nurse Advocacy



The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term advocate as “ one who pleads the case of another” (1989). The legal view of advocacy encompasses the definition of advocacy as a consultation between client and lawyer before a court proceeding (Woodrow 1997). The International Council of Nursing (ICN) has included nurse advocacy in their code since the 1970s. In recent nursing literature “ nurse advocacy” has become somewhat of a buzzword connected with the concepts of nurse autonomy, ethics, moral issues and the view of patients as health consumers. Although the nurse that advocates for their client has no real legal standing among the health professions, the importance of such advocacy arises often as a binding, if legally un-recognized, unsaid contract between the nurse and the client. Henderson’s theory of nursing says that advocacy is “a separate identity, n...