Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
Guidelines for Enhancing the Educational Development of Ethical Sensitivity in Professional Practice
Kathryn D. Weaver, RN, PhD, Faculty of Nursing, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada
| Learning Objective #1: appreciate the complexity of the concept of ethical sensitivity and its various dimensions. |
| Learning Objective #2: describe teaching strategies to efficaciously prepare nurses and other professionals for ethical practice. |
Is it ethically defensible for nurses and other professionals to “mean well” but act in ways that may ignore client needs? Ethical sensitivity (ES) on the part of professionals influences how clients experience professional care and services. However, knowledge about the concept of ES and its measurement has been inadequate to prepare professionals for practice. Current definitions that describe isolated components of the concept lack disciplinary and interdisciplinary agreement; educational strategies to help students develop ES have not been built on clinically based theoretical foundations. Thus, the present study was conducted to explore approaches for enhancing the educational development of ES. To this end, clinical and classroom strategies to teach professionals how to recognize and respond to the ethical demands of practice were synthesized using research and theoretical literature. These strategies were matched to the various dimensions of ES explicated from rigorous analysis of pragmatic utility. A framework of interventions is proposed to address the ethical requirements for praxis that must be learned beyond the technical requirements of professional disciplines. Using this framework, educators are guided to support students in building capacity for receptivity and responsiveness, identifying uncertainties within established terms of judgement, and developing courage to take perceived right action. Educators can assist students to recognize and process ethical issues through interactive communicative and transparent practices, knowledge of ethical principles and professional codes of ethics, and skill in reflexivity. Progressively, students can learn to foresee the moral consequences of possible actions and to act in ways that preserve the integrity of clients and relevant stakeholders. The study findings suggest that students must learn to gather and interweave the salient features of a situation before understanding can emerge and that students require opportunity to integrate learning from multiple, related educational strategies.