This paper analyzes the ethics of performance-enhancing drugs in professional baseball from the perspective of ethical theories: Kantianism, libertarianism, and utilitarianism. It argues that none of these theories can explain why performance-enhancing drugs should be prohibited. The paper argues that virtue ethics is the best moral framework for understanding the ethical problem of performance-enhancing drugs and why their use should be prohibited.

The issue of income justice in professional sports, while a topic of high ethical and social interest, is nevertheless not at the forefront of research. The differences between team and individual sports are significant, and this article will focus on team sports, where income is generally set by fixed contracts rather than bonuses or money prizes. First, I will illustrate the overall problem by presenting some figures on the relation of athletes' salaries from Major League Baseball (MLB) to (...) the median income of the overall population in the USA. I will then outline a model of income justice based on David Miller's definition of social justice, and will discuss two separate claims against which player salaries ought to be justified: those of fellow US citizens and those of fellow MLB players. Incomes are just if they fulfill both demands. Finally, I conclude that the disproportionately high salaries of professional athletes such as those in MLB are socially unjust, and therefore should be limited either by the governing bodies of the respective leagues or by the state. (shrink)

Few sports-related events have generated as much controversy as the steroid crisis in baseball. Both ardent fans and casual observers wonder why professional baseball players would choose to use such substances when their use was viewed as outside the bounds of fair play. This article attempts to answer that question by applying concepts from the area of organizational culture. Understanding the culture of baseball and the ways leaders embedded and strengthened that culture adds insight into the (...) decisions by athletes to engage in steroid use. In general, such use was consistent with the already-existing culture. In addition, key decisions and events likely created the conditions in which steroid use was more likely. (shrink)

Baseball rules prohibit pitchers from intentionally throwing at batters. When a pitcher does so, however, it is common practice for a pitcher on the opposing team to retaliate by throwing at the first player of the offending team to bat the next inning, and for umpires to ignore the rule forbidding that. I argue that player retaliation in the form of one for one is a better response to the initial violation than any other that is available, one for (...) one can be justified as payback and for anticipated good consequences, and everyone who becomes a professional baseball player has consented to the practice. From these claims, I conclude that one for one is in the best interest of baseball, it is best if umpires follow common practice and wink at the rule forbidding it, and players cannot complain if they are told to throw at batters in certain circumstances, or are thrown at in just those circumstances. (shrink)

When it comes to explaining someone’s puzzling, objectionable, or otherwise problematic behavior, one type of explanation occasionally employed in the service of doing so is as follows: “That’s just so-and-so being so-and-so.” But what, exactly, do explanations of the type “That’s just so-and-so being so-and-so” mean? More specifically, in what way, if any, is it meaningful or informative to say such things? And what is the precise function of such explanations of someone’s behavior? Is it merely to present what one (...) takes to be the underlying causes of the behavior, or something beyond that? In what follows, I lay out a few possibilities—basic possibilities, to be precise, given philosophy’s keen interest in fundamentals—with respect to the various meanings, functions, and moral implications of explanations of the type “That’s just so-and-so being so-and-so.” While doing so, I apply these basic possibilities to three tokens of this kind of explanation: “That’s just Manny being Manny” (in reference to Manny Ramirez, the former professional baseball player), “That’s just Charlie being Charlie” (in reference to Charlie Rose, the former television host), and “That’s just Trump being Trump” (in reference to Donald Trump, the current President of the United States). (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Half Title Title Copyright Contents The Four Noble Truths Foreword by Charles Johnson Prologue: An Ancient Fable.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 41, no. 2. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 463 Kawika Guillermo Libido Ergo Sum Sitting atop a red beanbag stained with dark splotches, Kelsey watched the tells from the five boys sitting on the carpet in front of her. One by one they gave away their hands, their eyes dodging hers, perhaps afraid of her female intuition. She loved these surreptitious moments, when her boys tried (...) to fool her, believing that they had her in their clutches, as if she couldn’t help but be pulled by their charms. Kelsey went all in, moving her chips into the middle of the carpet. Kaleb’s mouth grinned to the right while Gabriel impatiently tapped on his knee, keeping beat with the remixed 80’s tune coming from the large boom box behind him. Billy’s face was in a gleeful Leave-It-to-Beaver of daffiness, and Michael’s dumbfounded expression—worn to distract her— was put out by a nervous scratch of his neck. After each had pussied out, Kelsey leaned over to distract them further with her cleavage as she picked up the red playing cards, her hair settling onto the boys’ laps as if to imitate fellatio. “Alright, pussy bitches,” she said, collecting the chips and stirring the toothpick in her mouth like a mortar. “Pass’em down,” pointing to the gold dealer’s piece. “Big blind, little blind.” She watched the world as if from a recliner and saw herself dealing the next hand with the finesse of a professional dealer. Her gaze circled the carpet of poker players. Their eyes never met hers. In every house party Kelsey hosted, she always saw a faint bleakness in her guests. She always cleaned them out, her eyes scanning them like food at a supermarket, unveiling their moves with every glance. She watched them all at once: Jackson wiping his mouth, Michael adjusting his glasses, Gabriel 464 Kawika Guillermo chewing on bubblegum in loud smacks, Billy grinning as he mouthed curse words. Finally, Kelsey took only a glimpse at her own cards before doubling the ante. Tommy shrugged and tossed his cards; Michael met her raise and she went all in. She noticed these patterns all between them. She saw their reactions before they even happened: Michael shaking his head and calling her a bitch as he splashed his cards onto her living room carpet. At two in the morning she drank two tequila shots in the kitchen with Paul, one of the many toxic men that she had invited to her party from work. He was a sturdy baseball player/lightweight alcoholic, toxic in his thoughtless remarks on meeting schedules, upcoming due-dates, and portfolios. “Then you put the salt on your thumb, or whatever,” Paul said, shaking up a bottle of Patrón Silver, as if it needed to be shaken. Kelsey stuck out her shot glass for another. A year ago she would have been doing homework, playfully kicking off the dust of the world with a big biology textbook in her hands. Since then, she had discovered that there was a pattern to debauchery that led to some existential fulfillment—a realizing of herself as a living substance—an uber-debauchery. Refusing to dilute her angst into anything but total surrender, she was still a Vegas girl, willing to throw herself into in the Las Vegas rites of passage of drunk driving, diving nude into neighbor’s pools, and waking up in hotel rooms with a hundred dollar bill on the cupboard, weighted in place by Gideon’s Bible. “Another sausage fest,” said a man in a cowboy hat and vintage overalls. Kelsey didn’t know him. He sat on the countertop like the Cheshire Cat and flipped through a book of bumper stickers. He wore one with the words “Libido Ergo Sum” on his forehead. “All right!” another drunken voice shouldered through waves of sound: “Seize the day!” “James’s baby sure looks cute tonight,” said another drunken voice. “’Course no one would try, except this guy.” The man in the cowboy hat smiled up at her. “How come you don’t invite your girlfriends to your parties?” “I don’t have... (shrink)

The most valuable player (MVP) of an athletic league is the single best individual player in the league. The MVP award is the institutional recognition of this person, and it is the highest annual award that a player can receive. Despite its widespread consideration and importance, we argue that the concept of the MVP is a fundamentally vague concept. In the context of professional sports, however, such a vague category is valuable in that it promotes the active discussion of (...) different types of excellence found within a specific sport and the weight to be assigned these types, thus leading to a gain for the discussants. (shrink)

Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen's writings on social and political issues have attracted wide audiences. Section 2 introduces his contributions on: how people reason as agents within society; social determinants of people's (lack of) access to goods and of the effective freedoms and agency they enjoy or lack; and associated advocacy of self-specification of identity and high expectations for ‘voice’ and reasoning democracy. Section 3 considers his relation to social theory, his tools for theorizing action in society, and his limited degree of (...) attention to work by sociologists and to capitalism and power structures. Section 4 characterizes a style marked by conceptual refinement, emphases on complexity and individuality, including personal individuality, and reformist optimism. Section 5 shows the features from Sections 3 and 4 at work in his conception of personhood that advocates freedom to make a reasoned composition of personal identity. Similarly, Section 6 addresses his conception of public reasoning and neglect of the sociology of democracy. It contrasts the ideal of a reasoning polity with features in many countries. Sen's programmes for critical autonomy in personhood and for reasoned politics play, nevertheless, a normic role, while his analytical formats help investigation of obstacles to more widespread agency, voice, and democratic participation. (shrink)

Whether one's interests lie in psychological practice, counseling, research, or the classroom, psychologists today must deal with a broad range of ethical issues--from charging fees to maintaining a client's confidentiality, and from conducting research to respecting clients, colleagues, and students. Now in a new edition, Ethics in Psychology, the most widely read and cited ethics textbook in psychology, considers many of the ethical questions and dilemmas that psychologists encounter in their everyday practice, research, and teaching. The book has been completely (...) updated in response to evolving trends in psychological research and practice, as well as extensive changes in the American Psychological Association's ethics code. Taking a practical, common sense approach to ethics in modern-day psychological practice, this useful book offers constructive means for both preventing problems and resolving ethical predicaments. This new edition retains the key features which have contributed to its popularity, including extensive case studies that provide illustrative guidance on a wide variety of topics, such as fee setting, advertising for clients, research ethics, sexual attraction, classroom ethics, managed care issues, confidentiality, and much more. Highly readable, the book unites an accessible style with humorous anecdotes that highlight the human side of ethics and make the book a pleasure to read. Ethics in Psychology will be an indispensable guide to ethical decision-making for all psychologists and students in psychology. (shrink)

Jecker et al. (2024) propose seven ethical principles to guide international bioethics conferencing, applying them to the selection of Qatar as the location for the 2024 World Congress of Bioethics...

In recent versions of professional genre analysis, context has assumed increasingly critical importance, thus redefining genre as a configuration of text-internal and text-external factors. The emphasis on text-external properties of genre has brought into focus the notion of interdiscursivity as distinct from intertextuality, which is primarily viewed as appropriation of text-internal resources. Drawing evidence from a number of professional contexts, this article explores the nature, function, and use of interdiscursivity in genre theory, defining interdiscursivity as a function of (...) appropriation of generic resources across discursive, professional and cultural practices, which, it is claimed, is central to our understanding of the complexities of genres that are typically employed in professional, disciplinary, and institutional communication. (shrink)

Evidence exists that behavioral and social science researchers have been frustrated with regulations and institutional review boards (IRBs) from the 1970s through today. Making matters worse, many human participants protection instruction programs - now mandated by IRBs - offer inadequate reasons why researchers should comply with regulations and IRBs. Promoting compliance either for its own sake or to avoid penalties is contrary to the developmental aims of moral education and may be ineffective in fostering the responsible conduct of research. This (...) article explores the concept of professional virtue and argues that compliance is capable of becoming a professional virtue like scientific honesty. This requires, however, that regulatory and IRB demands contribute to human well-being and to the aims of research as a profession and that researchers, therefore, internalize the norms that underlie regulatory and IRB demands. This, in turn, requires a series of changes in the way society develops, promulgates, and enforces regulatory and IRB rules. The challenge is, simply put, to embed compliance into the world of living morality. (shrink)

"I do solemnly swear" -- Economics in practice : what do economists do? -- Ethical challenges confronting the applied economist -- Historical perspective : "don't predict the interest rate!" -- Interpreting the silence : the economic case against professional economic ethics -- The economic case against professional economic ethics : a rebuttal -- The positive case for professional economic ethics -- Learning from others : ethical thought across the professions -- Economists as social engineers : an ethical (...) evaluation of market liberalization in the south and transition economies -- Global economic crisis and the crisis in economics -- On sleeping too well : in search of professional economic ethics -- Training the "ethical economist" -- The economist's oath. (shrink)

Access to abortion is becoming increasingly restricted for many women in the United States. Besides the longstanding financial barriers facing low-income women in most states, a newer source of scarcity has emerged. The relatively small number of physicians willing to perform the procedure is compromising the ability of women in certain parts of the country to obtain an abortion.Do physicians have a duty to respond to this situation? Do they have a professional responsibility to ensure that abortions are reasonably (...) available to the women who want to terminate their pregnancies? Or, is abortion so morally and socially controversial as to remove any professional obligation to provide reasonable access?Both law and medical ethics have traditionally protected physicians’ freedom to refuse to perform any procedure, including abortion, that conflicts with their religious or other moral beliefs. (shrink)

Society in the 21st century is in many ways different from society in the 1950s, the 1960s or the 1970s. Two of the most important changes relate to the level of education in the population and the balance between work and private life. These days a large percentage of people are highly educated. Partly as a result of economic progress in the 1950s and the 1960s and partly due to the fact that many women entered the labour force, people started (...) searching for ways to combine their career with family obligations and a private life (including hobbies, outings and holidays). Medical professional ethics, more specifically: professional attitudes towards patients and colleagues, is influenced by developments such as these, but how much and in what way? It was assumed that surgery ethics would be more robust, resistant to change and that general practitioner (GP) ethics would change more readily in response to a changing society, because surgeons perform technical work in operating theatres in hospitals whereas GPs have their offices in the midst of society. The journals of Dutch surgeons and GPs from the 1950s onwards were studied so as to detect traces of change in medical professional ethics in The Netherlands. GP ethics turned out to be malleable compared with surgery ethics. In fact, GP medicine proved to be an agent of change rather than merely responding to it, both with regard to the changing role of patients and with regard to the changing work life balance. (shrink)

This paper applies two argumentation schemes, argument from fairness and argument from lack of knowledge (along with other schemes of lesser prominence) to model the reasoning given by Judge McCarthy supporting his decision to divide the proceeds of a homerun baseball in the case of Popov v. Hayashi. Several versions of both schemes are explained and discussed, and then applied to the argumentation given by Judge McCarthy as the basis of the reasoning used to arrive at his decision. The (...) scheme for argument from fairness is shown to be based on a special principle in Perelman’s theory of justice. (shrink)

As part of the regulatory review process, both the Food and Drug Administration and Office for Human Research Protections (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS]...

Almost more than any other sport, baseball has long attracted the interest of writers and intellectuals. Relatively few of them have been philosophers however. Alva Noe, a celebrated philosopher, here proposes to collect and rework his short articles and blog posts (many of which first appeared on npr.org) on baseball into a cohesive and accessible book that tries to tease out its deeper meanings - and to advance a view of what baseball ultimately is all about. A (...) basic theme will run through the book, which is that fundamentally baseball is concerned with questions of responsibility and liability - i.e. who gets credit or blame for a play. It is starting from this fundamental insight that Noe then ranges over diverse topics like the slowness of baseball and the virtues of boredom, why fans write down box scores, the meaning of the no-hitter, television replays, the aesthetics of ballparks, how we learn to 'see' baseball like we learn to look at art, the ethics of performance enhancing drugs, the nature of fandom, and reflections on rules and umpires. Noe's writing voice is informal and personal, and always puts the details of the sport before the ideas. Ultimately, his essays are part of a larger view of baseball as fundamentally a game about values - and not simply, as some would have it, a numbers game. (shrink)

Changes in healthcare financing increasingly rely upon patient cost-sharing to control escalating healthcare expenditures. These changes raise new challenges for physicians that are different from those that arose either under managed care or traditional indemnity insurance. Historically, there have been two distinct bases for arguing that physicians should not consider costs in their clinical decisions—an “aspirational ethic” that exhorts physicians to treat all patients the same regardless of their ability to pay, and an “agency ethic” that calls on physicians to (...) be trustworthy advisors to their patients. In the setting of greater patient cost-sharing, physicians' aspiration and agency roles increasingly conflict. Satisfactorily navigating the new terrain of consumer-driven healthcare requires physicians to consider these two roles and how they can best be reconciled so as to maximize quality of care while respecting the heterogeneity of patients' financial resources and willingness to pay. (shrink)

What ends should designers pursue? To what extent should they care about the societal and environmental impact of their work? And why should they care at all? Given the key influence design has on the way people live their lives, designing is fraught with ethical issues. Yet, unlike education or nursing, it lacks widespread professional principles for addressing these issues. -/- Rooted in a communitarian view of design practice, this lively and accessible book examines design through the lens of (...) professions, offering a critical vision that enables practitioners, academics and students of design in all disciplines to reflect on the practice’s overarching purposes. Considering how these are connected to others' flourishing and moulded by community interactions, "The Goods of Design" argues for a practice-based approach to cultivate professional ethics; it provides a normative direction that can meaningfully guide professional design activity, both individually and collectively. The volume also looks into the implications work has for the designer's self-growth as a person, offering ways to discover and navigate the complex tensions between personal and professional life. (shrink)

We argue that, in certain circumstances, doctors might beprofessionallyjustified to provide abortions even in those jurisdictions where abortion is illegal. That it is at least professionally permissible does not mean that they have an all-things-considered ethical justification or obligation to provide illegal abortions or that professional obligations or professional permissibility trump legal obligations. It rather means that professional organisations should respect and indeed protect doctors’ positive claims of conscience to provide abortions if they plausibly track what is (...) in the best medical interests of their patients. It is the responsibility of state authorities to enforce the law, but it is the responsibility of professional organisations to uphold the highest standards of medical ethics, even when they conflict with the law. Whatever the legal sanctions in place, healthcare professionals should not be sanctioned by the professional bodies for providing abortions according to professional standards, even if illegally. Indeed, professional organisation should lobby to offer protection to such professionals. Our arguments have practical implications for what healthcare professionals and healthcare professional organisations may or should do in those jurisdictions that legally prohibit abortion, such as some US States after the reversal ofRoe v Wade. (shrink)

Today, nurses are required to have knowledge and awareness concerning professional values as standards to provide safe and high-quality ethical care. Nurses’ perspective on professional values affects decision-making and patient care. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the importance of professional values from clinical nurses’ perspective. The present cross-sectional study was conducted in 2016 in four educational hospitals of Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran. Data were collected via the Persian version of Nursing Professional Values (...) Scale-Revised by Weis and Schank. Sampling was conducted through the use of stratified random sampling method and 250 clinical nurses participated in the study. Results indicated that the total score of the nurses’ professional values was high.. From nurses’ perspective items such as “Maintaining confidentiality of patients” and “Safeguarding patients’ right to privacy” had more importance; however, “Recognizing role of professional nursing associations in shaping healthcare policy” and “Participating in nursing research and/or implementing research findings appropriate to practice had less importance. A statistically significant relationship was observed between NPVS-R mean scores and nurses’ age, work experience as well as participation in professional ethical training. Although the total score related to the clinical nurses’ perspective on professional values was high, the importance of certain values was at a lower level. Owing to the emerging ethical challenges, it is indispensable to design educational programs in order to improve nurses’ awareness and understanding of the comprehensive importance of professional values. Furthermore, it is recommended that mixed methods studies should be conducted in order to design an instrument to evaluate the use of values in nursing practice. (shrink)

Research objectivesMoral distress is a common phenomenon among nurses and can negatively affect their mental health and quality of the care. This study aimed to determine the effect of professional ethics workshop with virtual follow-up on the moral distress of nurses.MethodsThis experimental study was performed on 50 nurses in Ghaem Hospital, Mashhad, Iran. The intervention group received 8-hour professional ethics workshop and 4 weeks follow-up through social network. The moral distress was evaluated through the Moral Distress Scale-Revised at (...) the beginning of the study, two weeks after the workshop and at the end of follow-up. Data were analyzed using SPSS21 by descriptive and statistical analysis.This study approved by Mashhad university Medical Ethics Committee and publishing ethics were also observed.ResultsThe changes in the mean value of the frequency of moral distress in the intervention group was not significant, while these changes were significant in the control group ( p < 0.001, df = 2, f = 26.41) and had an upward trend. About intensity changes in the intervention group were significant ( p < 0.01, df = 2, f = 8.52) and had a downward trend, while it was not significant in the control group. Changes in the mean value of level of moral distress in the intervention group were not significant, while these changes were significant in the control group ( p < 0.01, df = 1, f = 16.8). The mean value of moral distress level decreased in the intervention and increased in control group.ConclusionThe level of moral distress was increased in the control group due to increase in its frequency. This could be due to awareness of nurses regarding the concept of moral distress which caused them to pay more attention to this issue. Professional ethics workshop did not have effect on the frequency of moral distress, while it reduced the intensity and level of moral distress. Moreover, follow-up through social network reduced the frequency, intensity and the level of moral distress among nurses. (shrink)

The accounting profession has emphasized the need for ethics education in the accounting curriculum. The current study examines professional commitment and anticipatory socialization, operationalized by perception of financial reporting, as possible determinants of Accounting students' ethical perceptions and intentions. Accounting students with higher levels of professional commitment and higher perception of the importance of financial reporting were more likely to perceive questionable actions as unethical and less likely to engage in such actions compared to those students with lower (...) commitment and lower perception of financial reporting. The results have implications for accounting instructors and accounting employers as they socialize students in the accounting profession at this early stage. (shrink)

A causal-comparative, mixed methods design was used to study a partnership between a university and school district formed with the goal of improving history teachers’ United States history content knowledge to raise student engagement and achievement. Data were collected from middle and high school history teachers including teacher interviews, classroom observations, and student work. Student engagement surveys and academic performance data were also collected. Student academic performance was positively impacted and changes in classroom practice were found in the treatment group. (...) However, differences in student engagement between groups were not found to be statistically significant. (shrink)

Volume 46, Issue 6, November 2020, Page 773-777.

Just War Theory debates discussing the principle of the Moral Equality of Combatants involve the notion of Invincible Ignorance; the claim that warfi ghters are morally excused for participating in an unjust war because of their epistemic limitations. Conditions of military deployment may indeed lead to genuinely insurmountable epistemic limitations. In other cases, these may be overcome. This paper provides a preliminary sketch of heuristics designed to allow a combatant to judge whether or not his war is just. It delineates (...) the sets of relevant facts uncontroversially accessible and inaccessible to contemporary professional soldiers. Relevant facts outside these two sets should by default be treated as inaccessible until proven otherwise. Even such a rudimentary heuristic created in this way demonstrates that practical recommendations of MEC-renouncing Just War Theory are not too challenging to follow and still signifi cantly impact a compliant combatant’s behavior. (shrink)

The study used a thematic analysis to examine student and faculty responses to two qualitative questions focused on their perceptions of the consequence of incivility and solutions that would embed civility expectations as a key element to professional role socialization in higher education. Participants included students and faculty across multiple academic programs and respondent subgroups at a regional university in the southern United States. A new adapted conceptual model using Clark’s in _Nursing Education Perspectives_, _28_(2), 93–97 ( 2007, revised (...) 2020) Conceptual Model for Fostering Civility in Nursing Education and Daniel Goleman’s in _Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ_. Bantam Books ( 1995 ) Emotional Intelligence domains was used as the framework for this study to give meaning and context to its findings. For this group of respondents, the study found that seventy percent of faculty and students agree that incivility has the largest impact on the emotional intelligence domain of self-management, which includes negative emotional outcomes, loss of respect, negative professional and student outcomes, poor academic outcomes, attrition, and less success. Leadership in higher education will strengthen their institutions by using a relational approach centered on communication skill-building to ensure that faculty have been socialized to the importance of civil professional behavior and that stakeholders collectively explore and agree on the meaning and organizational integration of civility. (shrink)

Conscientious objections (CO) can be disruptive in a variety of ways and may disadvantage patients and colleagues who must step-in to assume care. Nevertheless, nurses have a right and responsibility to object to participation in interventions that would seriously harm their sense of integrity. This is an ethical problem of balancing risks and responsibilities related to patient care. Here we explore the problem and propose a nonlinear framework for exploring the authenticity of a claim of CO from the perspective of (...) the nurse and of those who must evaluate such claims. We synthesized the framework using Rest’s Four Component Model of moral reasoning along with tenets of the International Council of Nursing’s (ICN) Code of Ethics for Nurses and insights from relevant ethics and nursing ethics literature. The resulting framework facilitates evaluating potential consequences of a given CO for all involved. We propose that the framework can also serve as an aid for nurse educators as they prepare students for practice. Gaining clarity about the sense in which the concept of conscience provides a defensible foundation for objecting to legally, or otherwise ethically, permissible actions, in any given case is critical to arriving at an ethical and reasonable plan of action. (shrink)

In their 2018 article in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Little, Lipworth, and Kerridge unpack the concept of corruption and clarify the mechanisms that foster corruption and allow it to persist, noting that organizations are “corruptogenic.” To address the “so-what” question, I draw on research about trust and trustworthiness, emphasizing that a person’s well-being and sense of security require trust to be present at both the individual and organizational levels—which is not possible in an environment where corruption and misconduct (...) prevail. I highlight similarities in Little et al.’s framing of corruption to the persistent problem of scientific misconduct in research and publishing. I acknowledge the challenges in stemming corruption in science and medicine and conclude with a discussion about the need to reinvigorate a web of stakeholders to actively engage in professional regulation. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIn Deutschland stellen sich in Bezug auf die pflegerische Versorgung grundlegende Gerechtigkeitsprobleme. Sechs sozialethische Probleme werden behandelt, deren Lösung Priorität hat, wenn es um gerechtere Rahmenbedingungen für die berufliche Pflege geht: Da jeder Pflegekräftemangel insofern menschenrechtsrelevant ist als berechtigte Hilfsansprüche Pflegebedürftiger nicht erfüllt werden können, muss erstens die Überwindung des Personalmangels oberste Priorität erhalten. Zweitens verteilen Pflegegutachter ein großes Finanzvolumen aus der Pflegeversicherung mittels Pflegegradbeurteilungen. Aus Gründen der Bedürfnisgerechtigkeit wird vorgeschlagen, dass Pflegende sich bei dieser sozialstaatlichen Aufgabe stärker am Selbstverständnis (...) der Sozialarbeit orientieren und die Weiterbildungen in einen Studiengang überführt werden. Angesichts weitreichender Auswirkungen von Zeitdruck auf pflegerische Interaktionen und das Berufsbild ist drittens ein Teil der Zeitverdichtung zurückzunehmen. Viertens wird dargelegt, welche Belastungen mit einem hohen Krankenstand und Personalmangel einhergehen und wie Risikofaktoren entgegenzuwirken ist. Fünftens müssen den speziellen Belastungen des Pflegeberufs Ressourcen zur Seite gestellt werden, und sechstens könnten Strukturen der Ethikberatung moralischen Stress verringern. (shrink)

Success in Professional Experience develops fundamental knowledge, skills and competencies, which help to build meaningful relationships within educational communities.

This article addresses some ambiguities and normative problems with the concept of mature care in professional relationships and in health care priorities. Mature care has recently been introduced in the literature on care ethics as an alternative to prevailing altruistic conceptions of care. The essence of mature care is an emphasis on reciprocity, where the mature agent has the ability to balance the concerns of self with those of others and act from a principle of not causing harm. Our (...) basic claim is that the prevailing concept of mature care does not capture the real nature of professional relationships and role obligations in health care. As the focus of attention in professional care is and must be the patient’s particular medical and care needs, such care must principally be altruistic. Furthermore, we argue that mature care cannot adequately address moral conflict in health care without accepting some more principle-based approaches and a richer notion of partiality. (shrink)

Is it helpful to model the idea of professional formation on ethical formation?ing from the specifically ethical interest of Aristotle's own doctrine, in the ?narrow?, ?moral? sense of ethical, and aiming at the same time for an inclusive, ?broad? formulation which extends to various types of métiers (occupations/professions), this paper argues that an Aristotelian perspective offers a more robust concept of personal, professional and civic responsibility??responsibleness??than any that our present ?managerial? rationality can promote. Drawing on some Aristotelian texts, (...) I show that the practical knowledge of one with ?formation? (appropriate to the métier in question) enables an agent to find the relevant end and the appropriate act in the name of that end?as if simultaneously. The end and the means to the end are perfectly suited to one another. Crucially, the structure of the agent's practical reasoning is grounded on the telos which guides the agent and this is summoned implicitly from formation. This Aristotelian model of practical rationality stands as a rival to the public rationality that now predominates, a rationality which sees the meeting of explicit, pre-specified outcomes, objectives or targets as the chief way in which the accountability of agents may be secured. (shrink)

A significant number of asylum seekers who largely survived torture live in the United States. Asylum seekers have complex social and medical problems with significant barriers to health care access. When evaluating and providing care for survivors, health providers face important challenges regarding medical ethics and professional codes. We review ethical concerns in regard to accountability, the patient–physician relationship, and moral responsibilities to offer health care irrespective of patient legal status; competing professional responsibility toward society and the judiciary (...) system; concerns about the consistency of asylum seekers’ claims; ethical concerns surrounding involving trainees and researching within the evaluation setting; and the implication of broader societal views towards rights and social justice. We discuss contributing factors, including inadequate and insufficient provider training, varying and inadequate institutional commitment, asylum seekers’ significant medical and social problems, and the broader health and social system issues. We review existing resources to address these concerns and offer suggestions. (shrink)

Background: Empathy and moral courage are important virtues in nursing and nursing ethics. Hence, it is of great importance that nursing students and nurses develop their ability to empathize and their willingness to demonstrate moral courage. Research aim: The aim of this article is to explore third-year undergraduate nursing students’ perceptions and experiences in developing empathy and moral courage. Research design: This study employed a longitudinal qualitative design based on individual interviews. Participants and research context: Seven undergraduate nursing students were (...) interviewed during or immediately following their final clinical placement. Ethical considerations: The Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) approved the study. Participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and were assured confidentiality. They were informed that they could withdraw from the study at any time, without providing reasons. Findings: Affective empathy seemed to be strong among third-year undergraduate nursing students. However, they tried to handle the situations in a ‘professional’ way, and to balance their emotions. At the same time, they expressed how difficult it can be to show moral courage when confronted with poor patient care. In addition, they spoke about a lack of role models during clinical practice and supervision. Conclusions: Undergraduate nursing students are in a vulnerable position throughout their journey to become professional and to develop empathy and moral courage. The professional socialisation and forming of professional empathy and moral courage among nursing students, may be seen as a complex interaction of formal and hidden curriculum, where role models play an important role. We argue that the main theme ‘Vulnerable students – a journey towards professional empathy and moral courage’ may cover the longitudinal project as a whole. This vulnerability is something both teachers and supervisors should be aware of when following up with students in their clinical placements. (shrink)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has produced high stress in nurses, affecting their professional quality of life. Different variables affect psychological stress response and professional quality of life. In this context, the role of professional values represents an interesting object of research. Objectives: To analyze the relationship between professional values, perceived stress, and professional quality of life among nurses during the COVID-19 crisis. Research design, participants, and research context: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Participants were 439 registered nurses (...) from the public health system. Perceived stress, professional quality of life, and professional values were evaluated by using measuring instruments adapted and validated in the geographic context of research. Data were collected online in December 2020 during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee on Clinical Research of the Principality of Asturias. Findings: Within professional values, ethics obtained higher scores showing the primacy of ethical values among nurses. Moderate correlations between ethics, mastery, expertise, and compassion satisfaction were found. Frontline nurses informed high perceived stress. The correlations between professional values and compassion satisfaction were higher in non-frontline nurses. A moderate negative correlation between perceived stress and compassion satisfaction was found in both groups, which implies that the higher the stress, the lower the satisfaction in the helping relationship. Conclusion: Professional values positively influence compassion satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Compassion satisfaction presents a negative correlation with fatigue compassion and burnout in frontline and non-frontline nurses. Given the functionality of values both to guide clinical practice professionally and ethically, and prevent dissatisfaction with one’s professional quality of life by reinforcing compassion satisfaction, it is necessary to reinforce them with an intensive and cross-sectional learning during the university training. (shrink)

This study aimed to investigate the serial-multiple mediation effect of professional identity, psychological capital, work-related stress, and work-related wellbeing among intensive care unit nurses in China. The cross-sectional survey was conducted from January 2017 to May 2017 in two Grade III A general hospitals in Jining, Shandong Province, China. Cluster sampling was used to recruit participants from the two hospitals. A total of 330 ICU nurses participated in the study. The nurses’ work stress scale, Chinese nurse’s professional identity (...) scale, the PsyCap questionnaire, and Chinese work-related wellbeing scale were used to collect the data. Descriptive analysis, independent-samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis, linear regression analysis, and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. The average score for the work-related wellbeing of ICU nurses was 85.91 ± 13.94. Work-related stress, professional identity, and PsyCap correlated significantly with work-related wellbeing. The major predictors of work-related wellbeing were PsyCap, work-related stress, professional identity, and monthly salary. The serial-multiple mediation effects of professional identity and PsyCap in the relationship between work-related stress and work-related wellbeing were statistically significant. Positive professional identity and PsyCap were sequentially associated with decreased work-related stress, which in turn was related to increased work-related wellbeing among ICU nurses. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of ICU nurses’ work-related stress on work-related wellbeing, as well as the mediating effect of professional identity and PsyCap. It is hoped that hospital care managers will pay attention to the mental health of ICU nurses, increase their professional identity, and reduce work-related stress to improve the quality of the ICU nursing service and stabilize nursing work. (shrink)