The evolution of a high-fidelity patient simulation learning experience to teach legal and ethical issues.

A transformative learning activity, in which students participated in a high-fidelity patient simulation (HFPS) scenario, was initiated to help students learn the importance of legal and ethical content in their clinical practice. The authors used the continuous quality improvement process to guide their HFPS implementation strategies from year to year. The plan, do, check, and act model served as the framework by which 3 consecutive years of HFPS evaluations were conducted and findings subsequently implemented.

High-fidelity simulation and legal/ethical concepts: a transformational learning experience.

Students in an undergraduate legal and ethical issues course continually told the authors that they did not have time to study for the course because they were busy studying for their clinical courses. Faculty became concerned that students were failing to realize the value of legal and ethical concepts as applicable to clinical practice. This led the authors to implement a transformational learning experience in which students applied legal and ethical course content in a high-fidelity human simulation (HFHS) scenario.

Systematic review of educational interventions for improving advance directive completion.

Purpose: To systematically analyze evidence about the outcome and percent of newly completed ADs, focusing on the effectiveness of (a) types of educational interventions versus controls and (b) one educational intervention over another.

Design: Systematic review of literature based on Cochrane review criteria.

Methods: Twelve randomized and four nonrandomized studies were selected from the nursing, medical, and social work literature that met the following criteria: described educational interventions, provided information to calculate the percent of newly completed ADs as an outcome, and published between 1991 and 2009.

Ethical issues related to health care: the older adult's perspective.

Although ethical issues in health care receive much publicity, attention is rarely given to the non-dramatic, everyday ethics of health care. This American Nurses' Foundation (ANF) funded pilot study was significant because it was the first to investigate everyday ethical issues from the perspective of older adult health care consumers. The overall goals of this descriptive study were to pilot interview questions and study design, as well as collect preliminary data about the ethical issues older adults in two settings (a residential facility and a non-residential community center) encounter related to health care.

Being a good nurse and doing the right thing: a qualitative study.

Despite an abundance of theoretical literature on virtue ethics in nursing and health care, very little research has been carried out to support or refute the claims made. One such claim is that ethical nursing is what happens when a good nurse does the right thing. The purpose of this descriptive, qualitative study was therefore to examine nurses' perceptions of what it means to be a good nurse and to do the right thing.