2025 Conference
“Ethics isn’t only about the big, dramatic dilemmas and conflicts we encounter, but it’s also in the care we provide, the medications we give, how we teach, how we advocate, and the way we humanize the people we encounter on a day-to-day basis.” – Shika Kalevor
Kara Curry, MA, RN, HEC-C
Plenary Co-Speakers, Day Two: A New Era of Ethics: The Power of the Code
Shika Kalevor, MBE, BSN, RN, HEC-C
Plenary Co-Speakers, Day Two: A New Era of Ethics: The Power of the Code
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Q:
Each of you were involved in the 2025 revision of the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses. How are the concepts of everyday ethics and trust a part of the ”new era of ethics”?
This new era of ethics must match the intensity of the changing healthcare landscape that surrounds us. Issues of harm against patients require the longstanding value of human dignity to extend to condemning dehumanization. Heightened workplace violence results in the need for safety in the workplace, but that now extends to safety in patient encounters and collegial relationships. Recognition of bias as a contributor to health inequities and health disparities requires intentional self-reflection of nurses and the nursing profession. The duty the nurse has to themselves extends to the nurse’s ability to flourish and thrive. The structures and systems in place resoundingly affect patient outcomes which is why health policy must be recognized as social policy. All of these dynamic issues that are part of our everyday ethics come with an intensity and urgency that make this new era of ethics as important as it’s ever been.
– Kara Curry
This new era of ethics for nursing recognizes that the nurse practices and upholds the Code in everyday interactions with each other, their patients, themselves, and society. This iteration of the Code is not only aspirational, but also in touch with the everyday realities of nursing practice in its various forms. Ethics isn’t only about the big, dramatic dilemmas and conflicts we encounter, but it’s also in the care we provide, the medications we give, how we teach, how we advocate, and the way we humanize the people we encounter on a day-to-day basis. As a highly trusted profession, this Code honors that trust by using moral courage to address some of the most challenging things we face as a profession and a society.