The Nursing Ethics Blog

The piece linked below makes what might strike some as an odd claim: namely that the nursing program discussed should be considered odd or innovative for teaching ethics.

Penn professor calls for more focus on ethics in nursing

Nursing students at Penn learn valuable skills in biology and physiology, but they also study a more unusual subject: ethics.

While there isn’t a significant amount of research on ethics in nursing, bioethics as a whole enjoys a greater presence at Penn than it does at many other universities.

“One of the unique aspects of Penn Nursing is that we do have a bioethics course,” School of Nursing professor Connie Ulrich said. Ulrich is the only nurse bioethicist at the University, but the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy itself has over 40 primary and affiliated faculty. “I think we recognize that nurses have to think about the ethical decisions that are made on a daily basis related to their patients….”

So, question for discussion: does (or did) your nursing school have a course on ethics? Is it a required course?