The Ethical Nurse by Mary Ann Siciliano McLaughlin Ed.D., RN

My new article with two of my colleagues has just been published to the New Jersey Nurse & Institute for Nursing Newsletter, July 2020.  Happy reading! Teaching Nursing Students During COVID-19 Mary Ann Siciliano McLaughlin EdD, MSN, RN, Tyshaneka Saffold PhD(c), MSN, RN, & Shelley A. Johnson, EdD, MSN, MBA, RN, NE-BC, CNE   In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the landscape of nursing education is changing and evolving on a daily basis. On-ground nursing programs have been converted into an online format overnight. This change is a tall order, not just for nursing faculty, but for nursing students as well. So how, in this time of a pandemic, do nursing faculty promote ethics and integrity in students, while maintaining quality, and rigor in nursing programs to ensure student learning and adequate preparation for a future career in nursing?   Ethics is valu...

COVID-19 forced on ground nursing programs to change into an online format overnight since mid March in the United States.  This transition has been challenging to say the least.  It has been an adjustment for the nursing faculty who had to scramble to make sure they are still effectively teaching the students, and meeting instructional hours.  Decisions had to be made between how to deliver content - synchronously or asynchronously. Without a formal online teaching background, for most faculty, navigating this decision and developing alternate learning assignments was challenging.  To complicate this process further is that nursing schools are accountable to their respective State Boards of Nursing.  Plans for the semester had to be altered, put in writing to academic leadership, and then submitted to the respective State Boards of Nursing for approval.  Those plans were short term, but now as the stay at home orders persist, for those of us in year round ...

Promoting professionalism, ethics and accountability in our nursing students is so very important.  I feel this is so important because they are our future in the nursing profession.  We will rely on them to care for us when we are elderly, but more importantly we are entrusting them to do the right thing with regard to nursing and moving the profession forward.  This includes advocating for patients, helping to develop policy, and dealing with social issues.  The world continues to evolve and our patients needs will continue to evolve as well.  Nurses need to have a strong sense of commitment to move health care forward for our patients.   So how do we handle student indiscretions?  Lying, cheating, plagiarizing?  Students will do what they need to to do to get by.  How do we instill virtue integrity?  What are you seeing in nursing education?  How do you handle it?  Do you have faith in our educational process and our futur...

"Part of professionalism is accountability,  accountability to your actions and the outcomes of those actions." (Mary Ann Siciliano McLaughlin, 2018) This is my tag line and I say it to my students all of the time.  I really try to have students understand professionalism and accountability.  I feel this is a very useful life lesson for them as future nurses.  I feel they need to understand why it is so important for them to act in a manner conducive to being a professional nurse each day.  I know I have posted about this before, but it needs repeating.  It amazes me just how much nursing students do not really get the concept of accountability.  It is not just a concept for them to think about when they become professional nurses.  We, as educators, must develop this accountability while they are still in school training to be nurses.  Is it a generational gap?  Have we developed a society that thinks they are above accou...

Virtue is defined as “the qualities or characteristics developed by individuals when acted on in a balanced way, that are morally praiseworthy, and reinforce acting in the same way in the future” (Crigger and Godfrey, 2011).     Virtue can be viewed as two states of character (Crigger and Godfrey, 2011).   Virtue, as a state of character, was first defined by Crigger and Godfrey, as ‘makes one good’.  I see this "makes one good" as choosing to do the right thing.  For nurses, this choosing to do the right thing can positively impact our patients and their health/outcomes.   Second, virtue, as a state of character, makes a person perform well in their own work (Crigger and Godfrey, 2011). If a person, or nurse for example, performs well in their work, then again patients benefit.  Once a person performs well, they will most likely want to replicate that behavior in the future.  The students need to understand the importance of virtue and...

Social justice is acting in accordance with the treatment of patients regardless of their economic status, race, ethnicity, age, citizenship, disability, or sexual orientation (AACN, 2008). We address social justice as a pillar of professionalism. How many times have we seen patients treated differently based upon the aforementioned reasons?   Our students need to understand the importance of not treating people differently based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other component of social justice. The patients, inclusive of all patients,  deserve unconditional, unbiased care.   This is a concept that needs to be communicated to our students.   For nurses to be leaders, with regard to embracing social responsibility, the students must acknowledge the role of this pillar, within the profession (Tyer-Viola et al, 2009). How can we, as faculty, support this pillar of professionalism?  How can we demonstrate the need for social justice in how we co...