What Makes a Good Nurse: Why the Virtues are Important for Nurses

by Derek Sellman, Alan Cribb

Overview

In recent years, the human values at the heart of the nursing profession seem to have become side-lined by an increased focus on managerialist approaches to health care provision. Nursing's values are in danger of becoming marginalised further precisely because that which nursing does best - providing care and helping individuals through the human trauma of illness - is difficult to measure, and therefore plays little, if any, part in official accounts of outcome measures.

Derek Sellman sets out the case for re-establishing the primacy of the virtues that underpin the practice of nursing in order to address the question: what makes a good nurse? He provides those in the caring professions with both a rationale and a practical understanding of the importance that particular character traits, including justice, courage, honesty, trustworthiness and open-mindedness, play in the practice of nursing, and explains why and how nurses should strive to cultivate these virtues, as well as the implications of this for practice.

This original and thought-provoking book will be essential reading for nurses and nursing students, care workers, care commissioners, and many others who work in the caring professions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843109327
Publisher:	Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Publication date:	04/15/2011
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	756,347
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Derek Sellman qualified first as a mental health and then as a general adult nurse before studying for a BSc (Hons) in Nursing Studies at Manchester Polytechnic and a Master's Degree and PhD at the Institute of Education, University of London. He practiced as a nurse for many years before moving into nurse education in the late 1980s. He is the Editor of Nursing Philosophy and is now Associate Professor at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Table of Contents

Foreword 11

Acknowledgements 13

Preface 15

Introduction 17

A note on nomenclature 21

A note on definitional difficulties for nursing 22

A note on nursing codes 23

Structure and content of the book 24

Chapter 1 Professional Nursing 27

The teaching of ethics to nurses 28

Moral guidance 31

The moral education of nurses 34

Professional ethics 36

Education for the practice of nursing 37

The nature of virtue 39

Harman's challenge to virtue ethics 40

Professional virtues 44

Particular professional virtues 45

Trustworthiness 46

Open-mindedness 47

Education for professional virtue 47

Chapter 2 Human Vulnerability 49

All people are vulnerable… 51

Risks of harm 57

Patients as vulnerable people 61

Clarke and Driever's account 62

Patients as more-than-ordinarily vulnerable people 67

Nurses and protection of clients 68

Nurses are vulnerable too! 71

Nurses and human flourishing for patients 75

Chapter 3 Practices and the Practice of Nursing 76

Practices 78

Human flourishing 86

Nursing as a MacIntyrean practice 93

The core virtues of practices 104

Chapter 4 Trust and Trustworthiness 108

Background trust 110

The nature of trust 111

Trust and good will 114

Willingness to trust 117

A conception of trust 120

The place of trust in nursing practice 121

The tradition of trust in health care 122

Trust in nursing: personal or professional? 125

Personal trust relationships: friendship 126

Personal trust relationships: kinship 129

Trust relationships in nursing 130

Professional trust relationships 131

Competence and professional trust 132

Independent practical reasoning and trust 133

Trustworthiness 134

Potter's account of trustworthiness as a virtue 136

Discussion of Potter's account 145

The professional virtue of trustworthiness 149

Chapter 5 Open-mindedness 152

Open-mindedness as a virtue 153

The nature of open-mindedness 153

Being open-minded 158

Two failures of open-mindedness 159

Aiming for open-mindedness 161

Limits to open-mindedness 162

Bramall's critique 164

Why open-mindedness is necessary for nursing practice 165

Limits to open-mindedness in nursing practice 169

Aiming for open-mindedness in the practice of nursing 170

Evidence and open-mindedness for nursing practice 171

Becoming an open-minded nurse 173

Chapter 6 The Place of the Virtues in the Education of Nurses 177

Nursing education as moral education 179

The nature of moral education 180

Moral education or moral training? 182

Towards an understanding of moral education for nurses 185

Teaching for good will and the virtues 186

Teaching for the moral practice of nursing 191

Identifying the nurse teachers 192

The professional phronimos as nurse teacher 195

Competences 197

Teaching for trustworthiness and open-mindedness 198

Conclusion 203

Endnotes 208

References 210

Subject Index 217

Author Index 223

Editorial Reviews

This is a very careful ethical discussion that will not be for every reader, but is a valuable contribution to the current crisis of confidence, both in the NHS and society, about how we define the common good and moral responsibilities and wisdom.

The Sign

This is a stimulating, engaging text covering a wide terrain... I recommend that this book as a stimulating text for undergraduates, postgraduates and their lecturers; where the purpose will be to initiate discussion on distinctions between the ideal and the real. In this respect the book has value, as a catalyst, where these important matters will benefit from further debate.

Nursing Philosophy

Derek Sellman's text is both a timely and highly absorbing journey deep into the heart of nursing. It reveals a timeless and essential set of key virtues that should be a major part of the moral compass of every nurse. Subsequently, it should be read by all nurses - and most certainly by all nurse educators - who are interested in maintaining and promoting the vital moral characteristics of nursing now and in the future.

Dr. Martin Woods

Nursing, according to Derek Sellman, is a MacIntyrian practice which can only flourish when it is not prevented from pursuing the completion of independent ideas. In What Makes a Good Nurse, being vulnerable, trustworthy and open-minded are central virtues studied critically to offer future perspectives. Situated in the realities of the nursing profession today, Sellman draws back on his rich experiences as a teacher of nursing and his deep reflections as a philosopher. This is what makes the book so authentic and easy to stroll through the realms of philosophy. Readers will certainly feel encouraged to engage in a fruitful conversation on moral understandings of contemporary professional nursing.

Dr. Helen Kohlen

This book is published at a time in which it seems that virtue ethics is having a revival in applied medical ethics, and this also accounts for nursing ethics. The picture of what makes a good nurse as drawn by Derek Sellman should be debated, to see what nurses should or need not aim for. Especially nursing students will be interested in discussing virtues ethics and how to cope with difficult circumstances in order to realize the virtues into practice.

Health Care & Philosophy Medicine

He presents persuasive arguments and I commend him for drawing attention to the importance of these virtues in nursing. He presents values that all nurses should consider for their own practice and for the education of future generations.

Nursing Standards

As a nurse educator, I approached Sellman's work from my perspective of working with undergraduate students at the beginning of their nursing program - a critical point for teachers to consider what Sellman asks of us - What makes a good nurse? And why are the virtues important for nurses? As a teacher, not only was I looking for a comprehensive philosophical analysis of the virtues themselves, but also some thoughtful suggestions for how to approach the learning of, and teaching for virtue development, and how to help students value virtues as critically important attributes for nurses. In this, Sellman did not disappoint as I found myself immersed in philosophical complexity, compelling arguments, and renewed conviction about the importance of virtues for nurses and the educational endeavor as the appropriate space in which to locate them.

Nurse Education Today

This is perhaps the most thorough and outstanding coverage of the philosophical basis for nursing practice and nursing education that exists to date. What is nursing? What sort of people nurses should be? Derek makes this difficult but important area of nursing inquiry much, much easier. Powerful and elegant from start to finish, this book should be on the desk of every nurse.

Prof. Diana Lee

The theoretical domain within which nursing seeks to fulfil its social mandate demands not only shared ideals but also systems and structures to enact them. Sellman has jumped headfirst into this treacherous intellectual and ethical minefield, and offered us an enticing new direction.

Prof. Sally Thorne