Ethical Responsibilities of the Nurse Educator Role

Ethical Scenarios in Nursing Education

The scenario chosen for this analysis is one in which a colleague failed to conduct a class as was planned allowing students to leave early and not following instructions for the class. The problem that resulted is that only two groups presented in person and the other two groups posted their presentations on the Web. This content is scheduled on the next exam and no time is left for the student presentations.

This problem is one that should be handled in a manner that retains due respect for the colleague who instructed the class during the absence of the individual who was the instructor for this class. One of the principles in the statement of ethics for nursing education states as follows:

"As colleagues, professors have obligations that derive from common membership in the community of scholars. Professors do not discriminate against or harass colleagues. They respect and defend the free inquiry of associates, even when it leads to findings and conclusions that differ from their own. Professors acknowledge academic debt and strive to be objective in their professional judgment of colleagues." (Statement on Professional Ethics, 1966, Revised and Approved by the Association's Council, 1987, 2009)

The original instructor for the class has an obligation to give due respect to their colleague in terms of their methods and conclusions in research and this would appear to extend to the methods used in classroom instructional methods. It seems likely that the presentations took longer than expected and there might not have been time for the other presentations. In addition, the class may have been released early because although the class time was not up, the other presentations would have resulted in the class running over the allotted time. For these reasons, there should not be an assumption of negligence on the part of the original instructor against the instructor filling in during her absence.

Conclusion

The presentations were given for some of the groups during class and the other presentations were posted to the web. Therefore, all necessary information has been made available to the students for their review. Therefore, the best method for handling this situation would be to instruct the class to review in the information on the web in combination with the information presented during the classroom in preparation for the upcoming exam.

Rationale