Nightingale's Ethical Principles

For the Patients

It is a known fact that nurses are the most trusted healthcare profession by the public. In fact, the altruistic element of nursing was rooted deeply from Christian principles. As each profession has its own Code of Ethics to guide the practice, the American Nurses Association [ANA] (n.d.) and the Office of Human Protections [OHP] (2017) narrated two historical events that influenced the development of the Code of Ethics for nurses and research regulations respectively: Florence Nightingale’s experience in the Crimean War and the Tuskegee syphilis study in 1932. Thus, it is important to look back at these historical events to understand the value of ethical principles entailed in the nursing profession.

From Nightingale’s legacy, nurses, under the Hippocratic Oath, were visible agents of care providers for the wounded soldiers and affected civilians during the war. In

As stated by the American Nurses Association [ANA] (n.d.), the Florence Nightingale’s pledge entails the nurses’ commitment to do no harm, self-preservation to purity, and loyalty to physicians and patients. Despite the intention to form an ethical guidance, Epstein and Turner (2015) informed that the American Nurses Association [ANA], established in 1896, had to prioritize the issues on the nurses’ well-being, registration, and school accreditation. Back then, nurses were overworked, underpaid, and their public image was marred by untrained, unlicensed women who filled in the nursing roles during the