EDUCATING NURSES FOR THEIR FUTURE-ROLE IN BIOETHICS

The emerging new multidisciplinary and crosscultural field of bioethic s will require sensitive, open-minded professionals to take the lead i n hospital ethics, in genetic counselling, and in the teaching of bioe thics to students in nursing, medicine and the basic sciences. Nurses with ward experience who return to university to gain an MA or PhD in bioethics are eminently suited for this leadership role, for they may be more likely than physicians to study for a liberal education to sup plement their professional knowledge; their first-hand experience in n ursing is an antidote to the pointless subtleties into which philosoph ical ethics so often degenerates. When teaching ethics to nurses one m ust remember that, while some will simply use this knowledge in their own clinical work, others will go on to be teachers and researchers in bioethics. Their training must therefore be broad and interdisciplina ry, including real substantive philosophy (as opposed to philosophical ethics), as well as mystical bioethics, religious law, ethics of gene tic counselling, clinical approaches to ethical pseudo problems, resea rch skills, etc.