Nursing Education, Ethics, and Practice: An Overview

Overview

Recognizing the need to address a plethora of new challenges facing the profession of nursing in Canada, i.e., shifting demographics, growing healthcare needs, human resource shortages and the globalization of disease, The Canadian Nurses Association issued a statement in 2008 entitled Preferred Future: Health for All, in which it argued:

The Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) accepts the challenge to re-frame and reinvigorate our approach to healthcare and human resource issues, from how nurses are educated and licensed to how their competencies are used to best advantage. Nursing education, job design and responsibilities must change as the country moves from the traditional model of treating illness to one that focuses on keeping people well, with both care and support for maintaining health delivered in the community. Making this model
of health care a reality will require breaking down divisions within nursing as well as barriers between nursing and other professions (CNA, 2008).

Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
• Understand why nurses must be familiar with the law and ethics
• Recount the historical evolution of ethical theories and principles
• Describe how ethical theories and principles apply to nursing
• Analyze the nurse’s role as patient advocate

Discussion Forum

Please take the time to reflect on and discuss the three assigned articles with your fellow group members and then respond to one of the following questions. Please post your response as well as your reply to one of your fellow group member’s posts online via Moodle.

1. Do you agree with Gordon and Turner’s arguments that principlism is an inherently western notion that does not apply to other cultures or communities, or do you think that the values enshrined in it (e.g., autonomy, beneficence, and justice) are universal?

2. Do you agree or disagree with McCarthy, Murphy, and Loughrey’s assertion that power dynamics can distort medical practice or are there sound practical reasons why healthcare professionals should rely on “objective data of a theoretical or clinical kind”?

3. What are the alternative actions that might be taken? You are expected to respond to the question at hand and may add personal details or anecdotal material if these are deemed relevant to your analysis. In your responses to your fellow students’ discussion postings, you are expected to employ the same criteria to determine whether or not that student has adequately addressed the question or questions.

Grading Rubric for Discussion Forums

Individual case analyses will be graded by students’ fellow group members. Students will upload their individual case analyses via Moodle by the Friday on which the assignment is due. Group members are required to read and grade each of their fellow students’ submissions using the “Peer Grading of Individual Case Analysis” tool on Moodle by the following Friday. Each group member must submit their feedback once for each group member. Students have one week to complete this task. Then the grade will be determined by averaging the individual grades assigned by fellow group members (e.g., if two students assign a case analysis a grade of 3.0 and two assign it a grade of 4.0, the grade submitted to the instructor will be 3.5). 

The instructor will then post them online. Each individual case analysis is worth a maximum of 5 points. The four case analyses are thus collectively worth 20% of students’ final grade.