The primary roles and responsibilities of a nurse in the events of a natural disaster are to work as a team, some nurses may do tasks that they normally would never do like coordinating team huddles and providing updates to staff so they know what’s going on. During different disasters there are going to be different roles that will be needed but everyone should always know what is going on. For example, during a power outage many of the nurses are going to help the patients to evacuate to another hospital and make sure that the patients are safe throughout the evacuation. During any type of severe storm from snow to a hurricane the nurses are going to go into a shelter in place and everyone should know their roles. During a man-made disaster the nurse should protect the patients, they should help hid the, make sure that the doors are closed and putting everyone’s safety first. Many hospitals go through practice exercises to know what they need to do during a disaster and those who don’t have this training or education then feel as if they are underprepared or in the end could do more harm than good.

            I would agree that as nurses our compassionate nature does compel us to help others in need, we as nurses feel the need to always be helping others sometimes more than helping ourselves. Provision 2 of the ANA Code of Ethics stats that a nurse’s primary responsibility is to the patient but Provision 5 of the Code of Ethics stats the nurse owes the same duty to self so there is a conflict in people sometimes. There are people that will always help the patient and never think of themselves but on the other hand there are others who will think of themselves in a time of a disaster and not the patient as much. I think that in normal circumstances nurses should put the patient’s safety and health above all else, in a natural or man-made disaster I think it goes the same way until the nurse’s life is going to be more in danger if they go back to the patients. I think personally I will probably always help someone else before myself, but I do see where people come from if they want to help themselves before anyone else.