Teaching ethics: Intersectionality, care failure and moral courage

Abstract Background While ethics and professionalism are important components of graduate medical education, there is limited data about how ethics and professionalism curricula are taught or assessed in ophthalmology residency programs. Objective This study aimed to determine how U.S. ophthalmology residency programs teach and assess ethics and professionalism and explore trainee preparedness in these areas. Methods Directors from accredited U.S. ophthalmology residency programs completed an online survey about components of programs' ethics and professionalism teaching curricula, strategies for assessing competence, and trainee preparedness in these areas. Results Directors from 55 of 116 programs (46%) responded. The most common ethics and professionalism topics taught were informed consent (38/49, 78%) and risk management and litigation (38/49, 78%), respectively; most programs assessed trainee competence via 360-degree global evaluation (36/48, 75%). While most (46/48, 95%) respondents reported that their trainees were well or very well prepared at the time of graduation, 15 of 48 (31%) had prohibited a trainee from graduating or required remediation prior to graduation due to unethical or unprofessional conduct. Nearly every program (37/48, 98%) thought that it was very important to dedicate curricular time to teaching ethics and professionalism. Overall, 16 of 48 respondents (33%) felt that the time spent teaching these topics was too little. Conclusion Ophthalmology residency program directors recognized the importance of an ethics and professionalism curriculum. However, there was marked variation in teaching and assessment methods. Additional work is necessary to identify optimal strategies for teaching and assessing competence in these areas. In addition, a substantial number of trainees were prohibited from graduating or required remediation due to ethics and professionalism issues, suggesting an impact of unethical and unprofessional behavior on resident attrition.

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A Pragmatic Approach for Teaching Ethics to Engineers and Computer Scientists

2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) ◽

10.1109/fie44824.2020.9274029 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Thomas Taro Lennerfors ◽

Mikael Laaksoharju ◽

Matthew Davis ◽

Peter Birch ◽

Per Fors

Keyword(s):

Teaching Ethics ◽

Pragmatic Approach ◽

Computer Scientists

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Validation of the Dutch-language version of Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale

Nursing Ethics ◽

10.1177/0969733020981754 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 096973302098175

Author(s):

Olivia Numminen ◽

Kasper Konings ◽

Roelant Claerhout ◽

Chris Gastmans ◽

Jouko Katajisto ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Goodness Of Fit ◽

Scale Validation ◽

Principal Component ◽

Moral Courage ◽

Copyright Holder ◽

Moral Competence ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Component Structure ◽

Language Version ◽

Dutch Language

Background: Moral courage as a part of nurses’ moral competence has gained increasing interest as a means to strengthen nurses acting on their moral decisions and offering alleviation to their moral distress. To measure and assess nurses’ moral courage, the development of culturally and internationally validated instruments is needed. Objective: The objective of this study was to validate the Dutch-language version of the four-component Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale originally developed and validated in Finnish data. Research design: This methodological study used non-experimental, cross-sectional exploratory design. Participants and research context: A total of 559 nurses from two hospitals in Flanders, Belgium, completed the Dutch-language version of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale. Ethical considerations: Good scientific inquiry guidelines were followed throughout the study. Permission to translate the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale was obtained from the copyright holder, and the ethical approval and permissions to conduct the study were obtained from the participating university and hospitals, respectively. Findings: The four-component 21-item, Dutch-language version of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale proved to be valid and reliable as the original Finnish Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale. The scale’s internal consistency reliability was high (0.91) corresponding with the original Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale validation study (0.93). The principal component analysis confirmed the four-component structure of the original Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale to be valid also in the Belgian data explaining 58.1% of the variance. Confirmatory factor analysis based on goodness-of-fit indices provided evidence of the scale’s construct validity. The use of a comparable sample of Belgian nurses working in speciality care settings as in the Finnish study supported the stability of the structure. Discussion and conclusion: The Dutch-language version of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale is a reliable and valid instrument to measure nurses’ self-assessed moral courage in speciality care nursing environments. Further validation studies in other countries, languages and nurse samples representing different healthcare environments would provide additional evidence of the scale’s validity and initiatives for its further development.

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Evaluating Others If They Stand Up for Their Moral Convictions, and Evaluating Ourselves If We Don't Stand Up

Social Justice Research ◽

10.1007/s11211-021-00367-y ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Florien M. Cramwinckel ◽

Kees van den Bos ◽

Eric van Dijk

Keyword(s):

Social Environment ◽

Sexual Minorities ◽

Experimental Studies ◽

Moral Courage ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

Equal Rights ◽

Moral Beliefs ◽

Moral Principles ◽

Situational Demands ◽

Moral Convictions

AbstractActing on one’s moral principles is not always easy. Upholding one’s moral beliefs may run counter to one’s social environment or situational demands. It may often cause people to remain silent on their convictions, while at the same time some may show the moral courage to speak out. How do people evaluate those who do stand up, and how does it affect their self-evaluations? In two experimental studies (Ns = 207 and 204), we investigated both types of evaluations. The studies demonstrate that people who failed to uphold their moral beliefs still had positive evaluations of others who showed moral courage. More specifically, pro-gay participants who went along with writing an anti-gay essay denouncing equal rights for sexual minorities had positive evaluations of another person who spoke up and refused this task. The failure to display moral courage had negative consequences for participants’ self-concepts. In Experiment 1, we show that pro-gay participants’ positive self-concepts were lowered after writing an anti-gay essay (vs. a pro-gay essay). In Experiment 2, we reveal that participants' positive self-concepts were lowered only when they were confronted with morally courageous behavior and their own failure to uphold their moral beliefs was visible to the experimenter.

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