Moral Development and Moral Distress Through the Baccalaureate Healthcare Student Lens

Abstract :Health-care situations require health-care workers to make ethical decisions for their patients. Current literature failed to identify the health-care college student’s ability to traverse the challenges of ethical practice. This qualitative study, using a focus-group format, explored the health-care millennial students’ self-defined moral development in conjunction with their understanding of moral distress. Millennial baccalaureate health-care students at a Midwestern, private, health care college who had completed one semester of clinical experience were compared to a similar cohort of students having completed all semesters of clinical experience required to graduate. Both groups of students provided written and verbal descriptions of how the self-identified their own degree of moral development. Both levels of students identified and articulated how they developed morally, and they readily characterized salient moral issues and impacts from the purview of social media, television, education, and their experiences in health care. This led to the conclusion that: The students in both groups arrived at the study sessions with a developed concept of being moral. Thematic reflections included the perception of right and wrong, good and evil, and the influence of family, faith, and environment in moral development. Themes related to telling the truth, negligence, doing the right thing, and how critical thinking (or the lack thereof) were also found to be noteworthy. Not all participants recognized the term moral distress. However, all participants were able to provide examples of when they, or a person close to them had experienced moral distress in a clinical context. The conclusion was reached that: Comprehension of moral distress lagged in both groups, although some students previously experienced moral distress. Future research affirming that health-care students entering a health care practice are morally compromised is needed. Opportunity existed to enhance the health-care student’s skills to better cope with moral challenges in both the education and organizational arenas. Educators and employers need to work together to find novel ways to deal with moral distress earlier in the health-care career continuum.