Nursing Ethics in a Changing World

There are many reasons for the changes in the way nursing ethics has been taught in recent decades. The technological advances in all areas of medicine requires nurses to have not only better clinical and technical skills but also the ability to think critically about the challenges posed by new technologies. The following narrative discusses the ways in which nursing ethics has moved from being a subsidiary branch of bioethics to an autonomous discipline with its own conceptual frameworks and exposes the ethical challenges faced by nurses globally, particularly nurses providing end-of-life care. Nurses can meet the ethical challenges posed by end-of-life care best if they are well educated, not only during their undergraduate training but their ethics education must be ongoing throughout their careers. The need to integrate sound theory to evidence-based clinical practice remains an unrealisable ideal, yet it is an ideal worth striving for.