CNIETHICS.CA

What does it mean when we feel: Frustrated… Overwhelmed… Discouraged or Want to Escape…?

The VIHA Regional Ethics Program invites you to attend an educational session that will explore

Moral Distress in Practice

Join us for an island wide live video-link presentation

October 30, 2009
1000 - 1130 or 1400 - 1530

Presented by Paddy Rodney, RN Ph.D

Click here for more information:

Moral Distress Presentation

Recently, an article outlined how the United Nurses of Alberta warned members about using facebook on the job, after several nurses in the Calgary Health Region were disciplined for such offenses.  As social networking, text-messaging and cellphones become more integrated into our daily life, nurses need to be aware of the consequences of misusing technology in practice. While some hospitals simply block the site and help you to avoid any temptation, the Calgary Health Region actually chose not to block facebook:

“We’ve always had a philosophy of allowing people to go to the internet. A lot of people here do a lot of research, and typically when you’re dealing with medical terms, those are the very sites you’re gonna be blocking or you get your warning signs. That’s the reason why we don’t want to block sites,” Boake said.

While there are obvious concerns with appropriate use of time, there is also a potential ethical problem when nurses take to the internet to discuss their day at work. Personally, I have seen many status updates on facebook pages which give far more patient information than is appropriate- same goes for blogs and twitter. With the vast abyss of information on the internet nurses will likely not get ‘caught’ for these breaches of confidentiality- but what can we do as a group of professionals to reinforce the CNA Code of Ethics in such new territory.  How do we impart these important messages to students?

Please join the discussion, share your thoughts & experiences about Social Networking & Nursing.

EthicShare (www.ethicshare.org) is a new way to search for and access bioethics research materials and a space for scholars to collaborate, and it’s now ready for our community to use and explore.

To visit EthicShare, got to www.ethicshare.org; by registering for an account you will not only have access to full text of materials subscribed to by your institution, but be able to create groups, organize folders, and more. However you use EthicShare’s features, we’d appreciate your feedback. If you have ideas about possibilities for future features and tools, please contact me or the project director, Kate McCready (mailto:mccre008@umn.edu).

https://www.ethicshare.org/

The CNIE will be holding a Roundtable discussion at the Canadian Bioethics Society Conference titled:

Talking Ethics: Making it Real in Nursing Practice, Education and Research.

June 12th 0730 - 0830 hrs in Room Webster C.

Please contact anne.simmonds@utoronto.ca for questions

Program art

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Integrating Ethical Reflection into Practice

• Integrating ethical reflection program
• Integrating ethical reflection poster

Moral Courage

• Moral courage program
• Moral courage poster

Culture and Ethics: Living in two Worlds

• Culture and Ethics: Living in two Worlds program

This year’s Canadian Bioethics Conferece (CBS) will be held from June 11-14th in Hamilton Ontario. We will be hosting our annual CNIE meeting during the conference. This is a great opportunity to network with the Canadian Bioethics community and to hear papers on a broad range of topics. See the official web site for more details http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/bioethicsconference/

If you are interested in submitting an abstract, (deadline January 16th, 2009) go to http://www.bioethics.ca/Call_for_abstracts_eng.pdf

Merry Christmas to All!

Wendy Austin, PhD, RN

Abstract

Traditional approaches to bioethics, that privilege impartiality and objectivity and that focus primarily on moral reasoning, are relatively silent on the moral habitability of healthcare environments. Nurses and others in “the trenches” of healthcare are increasingly voicing the need to address everyday ethical issues, interdisciplinary tensions, and systemic concerns, in addition to the ethics of high-profile medical cases. Attention to the institutional processes that shape and constrain ethical dialogue and practice is required. In this article, the call is made for a shift in thinking about ethics in healthcare.

Full-text

Anne H Simmonds

Abstract

Advocacy has been positioned as an ideal within the practice of nursing, with national guidelines and professional standards obliging nurses to respect patients’ autonomous choices and to act as their advocates. However, the meaning of advocacy and autonomy is not well defined or understood, leading to uncertainty regarding what is required, expected and feasible for nurses in clinical practice. In this article, a feminist ethics perspective is used to examine how moral responsibilities are enacted in the perinatal nurse-patient relationship and to explore the interaction between the various threads that influence, and are in turn affected by, this relationship. This perspective allows for consideration of contextual and relational factors that impact on the way perinatal nursing care is given and received, and provides a framework for exploring the ways in which patient autonomy, advocacy and choice are experienced by childbearing women and their nurses during labour and birth.

Full-text

October 31, 2008

To: CNIE Members

Re: Updates and membership renewal (reading time: 3 minutes)

Dear CNIE members:

Updates: In response to member feedback, we have initiated a few important changes with CNIE, including:

• Members will receive a monthly email outlining new and/or updated position statements, events and activities. A link to our website will be included where you may follow-up on the details. Any additional emails from CNIE will be limited to information that is time sensitive, such as grant deadlines. If you are a member and are not receiving your monthly email updates, please contact our secretary, Ann Lemieux at annlemieux@shaw.ca .
• Please check our website (www.cniethics.ca ) for regular postings of ethics related events across the country. We will also be monitoring the discussion board and encourage you to share you ideas, issues and concerns with CNIE members.

Webmaster

• We are looking for a webmaster to be part of our executive committee. Our site is quite user-friendly, so no special expertise is required. The position mostly involves monitoring the postings and discussion board. Your commitment would be: executive teleconferences, usually lasting one hour every other month; weekly check in of the website, average 15 minutes/week. Looks great on your CV!! If you’re interested and would like to learn more about the position, please contact Anne Simmonds at anne.simmonds@utoronto.ca .

Membership Renewal

• It’s time!!! Most membership renewals were due July, 2008. We are extending the renewal period until November 30, 2008 to accommodate those of you who might have missed the summer renewal notices. All new and returning members will receive a FREE pocket copy of the new CNA Code of Ethics – our way of saying thank you for your continued involvement in ethical issues related to nursing.
• Please mail your completed membership renewal form (attached) to:

Margaret Eastman

218 Seafield Rd.,

Victoria, BC

V9C 1S5

Welcome to CNIE new and returning members!

We are off to an exciting year, starting with the launch of the new CNA Code of Ethics at the annual CNA meeting in June.

Please check out news from CNA as well as ‘Events’ and ‘Links’ for updates on conferences, workshops and activities across Canada related to Nursing and Ethics.

As always, we look forward to hearing from you, our members, about events happening in your part of the country as well as the issues that arise in your daily practice. Please feeel free to use the discussion board on this site or to contact any of your executive members with question, suggestions etc.

Warm regards to all

Anne Simmonds, CNIE president