Ethical Scenarios in Nursing Education

Order Description
By definition an ethical dilemma is not easy to resolve, and as a nurse educator you are likely to be faced with many. What action would you take if you discovered that one of your best students has cheated on a test? And what if she is a single mother working full time while going to school to provide a better future for her family? By drawing on ethical theories and principles, you may still find it difficult to take the best action, but you will have reasonable grounds for arriving at your choice.

For this Discussion, analyze one of the following four ethical scenarios. Explain what you would do in that situation and what the rationale is for this choice, identifying the ethical theories and principles that guided your choice. Then describe a personal example of an ethical situation you encountered during your education and identify the salient principles that did, or should have, guided your response to it.

Scenario : Staff Development

As the director of staff development, you are responsible for the orientation process for new RNs. As you make rounds on the units one day, one of the new nurses says that she really needs to talk to you about a situation she has encountered in the unit. She shares that she went with a more experienced nurse to access a central port and change the dressing. The nurse did not use gloves to remove the old dressing or to place on the new one. The patient is immunosuppressed as the result of chemotherapy. This new RN also heard his wife comment under her breath, Wow, she’s not using gloves. She is concerned over the possible threat to the patient’s health, but doesn’t know what to do since the experienced nurse is highly respected on the unit, has been there for a long time, and often serves as charge nurse. She asks you what you think she should do or how the situation should be handled.

With these thoughts in mind:
Post your analysis of one of the four ethical situations, addressing the following:

1-Identify the scenario you selected and summarize what you would do in that situation.

2-Describe the decision-making process you used in determining your action. What ethical theory served as the foundation for your decision? What ethical principles did you apply in making this decision?

3-Briefly describe a personal experience of an ethical situation in education.

4-Analyze this situation. What theories or principles are most relevant here? What actions did you take, or should you have taken, in light of these ethical guidelines?