Teaching Undergraduate Nursing Students With the XXX (Insert Author's Name Here) Model of Ethics

Teaching Undergraduate Nursing Students with the XXX (insert author’s name here) Model of Ethics

This model of ethics was developed out of original research conducted on ethics in nursing. The author conducted a hermeneutic phenomenological study, that asked: What is the experience of accelerated nursing program graduates utilizing ethics in their nursing practice?

This research yielded the following five essential themes: the nurse serving as a patient advocate, the nurse promoting a dignified death for a patient, the nurse fostering the humane side to patient care, the nurse encouraging virtuous integrity, and the nurse actualizing authentic leadership.

The model developed out of this study can be used to teach nursing students about how to make ethical decisions in practice. The model is a culmination of the five themes (advocacy, dignity, humanity, integrity, and leadership), in addition to the central framework of authenticity.

The model has implications for nursing education, nursing practice, and nursing research. Implications for nursing ethics include social ethics, and concern with policies and structures related to the healthcare environment.

Implications for education include ethics education on a formal and informal basis and the incorporation of these five essential themes into the educational process. This study supported the tenets of authenticity as a framework for education and the use of ethics in nursing programs and practice areas. This ethics model will help with the integration of a virtue-ethics approach to develop individual values in nursing students. In addition, the educators must teach core competencies along with theories. Integration of case-based learning to support practical reasoning through the use of critical thinking will also be necessary when using this model of ethics in nursing education.

Implications for nursing practice included the utilization of this model in practice. In addition, accountability was identified as imperative for ethical practice.

Implications for future research include study replication with prelicensure and advanced practice graduates. A future quantitative study may be developed from this initial qualitative study. Finally, this study and ethics model lends itself to transferability to professional fields outside of nursing. The author hopes that this ethics model may be incorporated into nursing education and perhaps even classes for other college majors.