Breier-Mackie[5] suggests that nurses' focus on care and nurture, rather than cure of illness, results in a distinctive ethics.
[6] For example, a concern to promote beneficence may be expressed in traditional medical ethics by the exercise of paternalism, where the health professional makes a decision based upon a perspective of acting in the patient's best interests.
Amongst other things, the grounds of the practice of informed consent that should be respected by the nurse,[7] although much of the debate lies in the discussion of cases where people are unable to make choices about their own treatment due to being incapacitated or having a mental illness that affects their judgement.
A suggested way to maintain autonomy is for the person to write an advance directive, outlining how they wish to be treated in the event of their inability to make an informed choice, thus avoiding unwarranted paternalism.
There is a balance between people having the information required to make an autonomous decision and, on the other hand, not being unnecessarily distressed by the truth.
Generally, the balance is in favour of truth telling due to respect for autonomy, but sometimes people will ask not to be told, or may lack the capacity to understand the implications.