a. Nursing practice is intricately entwined with moral complexity. A nurse’s role in ethics regarding evidence implementation is to ensure that patient’s clinical decisions are informed and reflected in the best practice. The goal is to improve patient outcomes, prior to implementation the patient is educated on what to expect before/after, informed consent is reviewed to ensure it has been signed. During the implementation process the nurse continuously monitors and assess the patient throughout. Furthermore, the nurse aides in the generation of evidence by reporting findings and following protocols for documentation thereafter. Nurses contribute to ethical conduct of research and implementation of research finding by advocating in the best interest of the patient, providing respect, promoting patient autonomy, beneficence and safety.

b. Nursing is defined as the protection, promotion and optimization of health, prevention of illness and injury, advocacy in the care of individuals and families and the alleviation of suffering. After watching “Miss Evers’ Boys”, my understanding of the nurse’s contribution to ethical conduct of research and implementation of research findings remains the same. It is important for nurses to understand the historical evolution of the principles of research ethics in order to be knowledgeable of changes that have been made to adapt to the needs of society. We live in a world that heavily relies on technology that is constantly being reformatted and updated, health technology has been widely implemented to provide more efficient health care services. However, the ethical concern in regards to technological communication in the health care setting is patient privacy and confidentiality. With the ease of access to patients records in an electronic format patient consent is not always a requirement as prescribers regularly and legally share patient information with health insurers and pharmacies. Breach of patient privacy, confidentially and deficient patient knowledge are ethical concerns in regards to the use of health technology. The patient should be knowledgeable in how they may obtain access to their electronic medical records, additionally the patient should have the right to control who sees their information and when it is being seen to promote patient privacy and confidentiality. Nurses in the current health care environment face increasingly complex ethical dilemmas. Furthermore, it requires nurses to have moral courage and resilience to upholding our commitment to patients and promote what is right for patients and fellow nurses. The historical evolution and changes made to the principles of research ethics directly affects the nurses’ role in leadership, advocacy and patient autonomy. Nurses must be knowledgeable of current ethical guidelines in order to be mindful of the commitment as a nurse and the ability to identify boundaries of duty and loyalty. Lastly, my achievement of the course objectives for EBP have provided me the knowledge to be competent in my ability to participate in ethical conduct of research quality improvement and evidence-based practice initiatives by providing me with the skills to accomplish such tasks. Through this course I have learned how to appropriately appraise, analyze and synthesize literature that can contribute to evidence-based practice initiatives and quality improvement. Additionally, I have learned to synthesize literature from similar studies that further support ethically appropriate interventions to improve care and outcomes for patients.