The ANA House of Delegates approved the following nine provisions of the new Code of Ethics for Nurses:

  • The nurse practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, and unique attributes of every person.
  • The nurse’s primary commitment is to the patient, whether an individual, family, group, community, or population.
  • The nurse promotes, advocates for, and protects the rights, health, and safety of the patient.
  • The nurse has authority, accountability, and responsibility for nursing practice; makes decisions; and takes action consistent with the obligation to promote health and to provide optimal care.
  • The nurse owes the same duties to self as to others, including the responsibility to promote health and safety, preserve wholeness of character and integrity, maintain competence, and continue personal and professional growth.
  • The nurse, through individual and collective effort, establishes, maintains, and improves the ethical environment of the work setting and conditions of employment that are conducive to safe, quality health care.
  • The nurse, in all roles and settings, advances the profession through research and scholarly inquiry, professional standards development, and the generation of both nursing and health policy.
  • The nurse collaborates with other health professionals and the public to protect human rights, promote health diplomacy, and reduce health disparities.
  • The profession of nursing, collectively through its professional organizations, must articulate nursing values, maintain integrity of the profession, and integrate principles of social justice into nursing and health policy.

The Rielin-Salmen School of Nursing believes that ethical principles are a necessary guide to professional development. In addition to learning academic theory and clinical skills, nursing students have a responsibility to adhere to the statements within the Code of Ethics that provide guidance in the personal development of an ethical foundation while caring for patients in a variety of health care environments.

A breach of professional standards and/or ethical conduct will warrant dismissal from the course and/or the nursing program.

Nursing students are required to adhere to the Standards of Student Conduct in Section V of the TMU Student Handbook.