For Expert_Researcher

Topic of the Midterm: Professional Code of Conduct

Using their respective professional code of conduct , students will develop a 5 page paper identifying the principles of ethics contained within their Code. They will analyze and explain those principles in light of the readings and discussions covered in class. They will write, in their own words, what their responsibilities towards their patients are from an ethical perspective and will indicate any conflict of interest. If applicable, the student will describe what procedures are already in place in their workplace to handle ethical conflict. If no procedures are in place, the students may suggest how such procedures may be set up.

Some more Instructions for the Midterm:

1. Find the professional code of ethics at your workplace. This will work if you are employed in a healthcare setting. All hospitals and medical centers have a code of ethics. If it is difficult for you to locate this, then use the code of ethics for the profession which you will be entering, in most of your cases: nursing or vascular sonography. The American Nurses Association code can be found at their website.

2. Look through the code (whichever it is you are using, or if you wish, a combination of codes, etc). Look at each provision. While reading the provisions, Garrett et al. (the textbook for the class) will come to mind quite often. You will see that many of the provisions you will find in your code of ethics will have elements of the principles you have been studying in the Garrett text.

3. It would be helpful in this assignment to condense the provisions into areas which resonate of the principles in the Garrett book. For example, you will see that there is always a provision that refers to the principle of autonomy, informed consent; there's usually one that talks about ethics of distribution, another that talks about institutional ethics, etc. 

4. You do not have to go through each and every single one of the provisions; only the ones that are most similar in relation to the text. You'll also notice that you can group the provisions into different categories. Often, more than one provision will discuss informed consent and privacy, for example. That being said, I will not accept a paper that concentrates on only ONE or TWO provisions or principles.

5. Please do not write each provision down word for word. Try to condense them in your own words as best you can. If you just state the provisions as they are in the code, you are essentially turning in a string of quotes and not a paper.

6. Please do not use examples from the case studies already covered in class.

7. A word about academic honesty: I will not tolerate plagiarism. I use turnitin.com, which searches thousands of websites and papers. Use APA style and make sure you are citing everything that is not your own. Even if you paraphrase somebody else's words, you still have to tell me where you got the information from, so give me the author and year (Smith, 2003) in in-text citations. It is YOUR Job to understand what constitutes plagiarism. Familiarize yourselves through www.plagiarism.org  I cannot stress this enough. If you copy even a sentence from another source and do not cite it correctly, you will receive a failing grade on the assignment.