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Volume 3 Advanced Practices in Nursing
ISSN: 2573-0347 Advanced Nursing Research 2018
June 14-15, 2018
June 14-15, 2018 | Dublin, Ireland
48th World Congress on
Advanced Nursing Research
The duty to care: Examining nurses’ ethical responsibility to report for work in the face of disasters
and extreme events
Dónal O’Mathúna
The Ohio State University, USA & Dublin City University, Ireland
Epidemics, pandemics and disasters occur with increased frequency. Concerns are increasing about chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) events. The potentially large numbers of injured, traumatized and dying
patients require many nurses and other healthcare professionals. Sometimes, caring for patients puts nurses at serious risk
of harm, such as when patients are infectious or contaminated. This creates ethical conflicts between one’s professional duty
to care and the need to care for oneself, one’s family, and future patients. History records many examples of nurses accepting
significant risks during wars and infectious outbreaks, like with Ebola virus disease. Such decisions have been lauded as heroic
whether undertaken for personal moral or religious reasons, or in response to a professional duty to care. However, some
question whether such a duty to care is ethically obligatory in the face of pandemics and CBRNE events. The University of
Toronto’s report into pandemic influenza, completed after the SARS outbreak there, called for much further ethical analysis of
the duty to care. A systematic review found that nurses are under-prepared for the ethical challenges faced in disasters. This
presentation will review the ethical arguments used to justify and also limit the duty to care. It will discuss the World Health
Organization’s guidance on ethics in pandemics which notes that the duty to care is not unlimited during pandemics, and that
employers and governments have reciprocal duties to provide training and protective equipment. This presentation will argue
that rather than looking to legal and regulatory responses, the ethical virtues of courage and volunteerism should be fostered
as part of promoting trust in nurses and other healthcare professionals. Virtue ethics includes a narrative approach that values
the role of stories to inspire people to strive towards ethical ideals and praiseworthy leadership, even when caring involves
serious risks.
Biography
Dónal O’Mathúna is Associate Professor in the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University, USA and in the School of Nursing & Human Sciences, Dublin City
University, Ireland. His research interests focus on both healthcare ethics and evidence-based practice. His ethics research has focused on disasters and humanitarian
crises. He has led funded research projects on healthcare and research ethics in the context of disasters and humanitarian crises. He has contributed to ethics initiatives
and guidelines with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the UN agency for disaster risk reduction (UNISDR). As the director of a new virtual Center for Disaster
& Humanitarian Ethics , he is helping develop practical tools and support strategies to facilitate reflection on ethical issues in humanitarian
research. He has spoken and published widely, including peer-reviewed articles in The Lancet, Bioethics, BMC Medical Ethics, Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, and
Worldviews on Evidence-based Nursing.
Dónal O’Mathúna, Adv Practice Nurs 2018, Volume 3
DOI: 10.4172/2573-0347-C2-020