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Learning Objective 1: incorporate the experiences of nurse ethicists into the bioethical content of the curriculum.
Learning Objective 2: utilize selected teaching strategies for student growth in moral discernment, self-reflection, and analysis of bioethical problems in nursing.
Learning about the ethical dimension of practice would seem most relevant if examined and explored using material discussed and described by nurses. Nurses have made stellar contributions in the area of bioethics over the past several decades. A corpus of selected nurse ethicists’ scholarly contributions provides a knowledge base for nursing students and best assists the teacher and novice scholar if available in one source.
Based on a canvass of the nursing ethics literature, eight themes were identified and translated into the framework for an ethics project and publication (Nursing and Health Care Ethics: Legacy and A Vision). Essays within each theme consist of selected nurses’ reviews of their careers, their research, and reflections about the possible future of ethics in nursing. These themes and essays subsequently become the major building blocks for an ethics course. A poem introduces each theme offering another window of moral discernment not usually found in ethics case studies. Critical Thinking Activities (CTAs) throughout the book focus on insights, application, and self reflection for a deep understanding of the content. Together these elements help the students see the problems, controversies and assumptions that lie behind core moral concerns of the nursing profession. A nursing ethics course based on the moral concerns of the profession as understood by leaders in nursing ethics provides a direct connection to practice that resonates with students and their own experiences in the clinical setting.