Continuing education online courses on Nursing Ethics.

N18. End of Life Care: Nursing Ethics, 30 CE-hours, $63

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N18. Nursing Ethics, 3 CE course hours 

1. Nursing Ethics

Final Narrative Report on Nursing Ethics at Delta College

This four-part report describes a project undertaken by Delta College to implement two required bioethics courses for nursing students: an introductory course in ethical theories and an advanced course in applications of these theories in nursing.

After Part I relates how funding for the project was secured and used, Part II delineates the activities that were part of the Nursing Ethics Project, describing staff training efforts, course organization and activities, faculty workshops, and three consultation visits. Part III discusses the impact of the project, revealing that it has resulted in the permanent addition of the two ethics courses to the curriculum. Finally, Part IV presents a narrative self-evaluation, which summarizes the content of both courses and notes the following problems that were encountered:

(1) the lack of a bioethics text requiring the development of a workbook; (2) the initial complaints of students who resented a suddenly added curriculum requirement; (3) difficulties experienced in preparing weekly quizzes; (4) the need to avoid specialized, philosophical terminology; (5) the objections of some nursing instructors that the courses lacked clinical relevance; and (6) the lack of discussion of ethical issues in other nursing courses and the danger of creating a separation between the study of ethics and of nursing. (JP)

Source: Eric ED202562 by Pfeiffer, Raymond S.  1980

2. Virtual Nursing Ethics

Virtue ethics: an approach to moral dilemmas in nursing.

Arries E.

School of Nursing, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park. ea@edcur.rau.ac.za

Nurses are increasingly confronted with situations of moral difficulty, such as not to feed terminally ill patients, whistle blowing, or participation in termination of pregnancy. Most of these moral dilemmas are often analyzed using the principle-based approach which applies the four moral principles of justice, autonomy, beneficence, and non-malfiscience.

In some instances, consequentialism is considered, but these frameworks have their limitations. Their limitations has to do with a consideration for the interpersonal nature of clinical nursing practice on the one hand, and is not always clear on how to judge which consequences are best on the other hand. When principles are in conflict it is not always easy to decide which principle should dominate. Furthermore, these frameworks do not take into account the importance of the interpersonal and emotional element of human experience.

On the contrary, decision-making about moral issues in healthcare demands that nurses exercise rational control over emotions. This clearly focuses the attention on the nurse as moral agent and in particular their character. In this article I argue that virtue ethics as an approach, which focus of the character of a person, might provide a more holistic analysis of moral dilemmas in nursing and might facilitate more flexible and creative solutions when combined with other theories of moral decision-making. Advancing this argument, firstly, I provide the central features of virtue ethics. Secondly I describe a story in which a moral dilemma is evident. Lastly I apply virtue ethics as an approach to this moral dilemma and in particular focusing on the virtues inherent in the nurse as moral agent in the story.

PMID: 16245481 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE

3. Global Nursing Ethics

International Nurse Recruitment

Picking Out the Pieces: Ethics and Morality in Global Nurse Migration Policy.

Hayden SA, Narine L, Tong RO; Academy Health. Meeting (2005 : Boston, Mass.).Abstr Academy Health Meet. 2005; 22: abstract no. 3501.University of North Carolina at Charlotte, PhD Program in Public Policy , 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223 Tel. 704-687-6272 Fax 704-583-4467

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: This study explores the extent ethical and moral arguments are considered in policy discussions about international nurse recruitment. International nurse recruitment can seem a morally neutral phenomenon but there is growing recognition that it in fact may have significant moral and ethical impacts. For developing countries, the losses of large numbers of highly skilled workers represents investment losses in human capital and have the potential to threaten their ability to establish and maintain basic public health measures. In this study we look at the ethics of a tradeoff between access to health care and freedom of movement by health care professionals; dilemmas created when one group of highly skilled professionals is treated differently than others; and the ethical and moral implications of brain drain.

STUDY DESIGN: This research is a meta-synthesis of existing studies. Studies were identified using major key search terms on Medline, CINAHL, social science citation index, and other health care databases. Published and unpublished papers addressing ethical recruitment of nurses by national and international professional nursing organizations and major institutions were also reviewed.

POPULATION STUDIED: Previous studies on nurse immigrants, migration of medical professionals, and issues of globalization related to brain drain.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Few studies on nurse recruitment have considered the ethical implications of international nurse recruitment. It is not known what effects recent ethical statements from international agencies may have as recruitment efforts are conducted by private employment agencies that are external to government and professional organizations. There are currently no mechanisms to monitor recruitment methods and approaches. Few ethical standards for nurse recruitment addressed the health care access and quality of care problems that may arise in source countries. Nor has there been explicit examination of the ethics associated with the loss of capital investment experienced by these countries.

CONCLUSIONS: Current discourse regarding international nurse recruitment fails to address the issue in terms of professional ethics and values. While they address exploitation and mistreatment of nurse immigrants, ethical statements fail to consider the financial and social exploitation of source countries. The impact of equity and efficiency tradeoffs between Northern and Southern countries remains largely unexplored. The failure to take into account ethical implications limits the policy discussion taking place about international recruitment and so may hinder attempts to fully understand what the phenomenon involves, its effects, and what might be the best options available to address the problem.

IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY, DELIVERY OR PRACTICE: Elucidation of the ethical and moral dilemmas inherent in international nurse recruitment can help researchers and policy makers to identify a way to better understanding this topic as both a domestic and foreign policy issue. For healthcare administrators this new understanding provides a framework for thinking about the tradeoffs between using domestic or foreign prepared nurses. For policymakers and nurse educators, this information will assist in decision-making about increasing domestic production of professional nurses. Professional nursing organizations, professional associations, and nursing leaders can use these findings to help them better integrate professional ethics and values in their approaches to international nurse recruitment

Source: http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=103622964.html