Ethics and Law for Australian Nurses

Nursing is a profession that encompasses a huge diversity of practices and practice settings, but the aim of nursing practice remains the same: to support and promote the health and well-being of human persons. Ethics and Law for Australian Nurses is an integrated and coherent textbook that allows students to understand the mutual relationship between the legal and ethical frameworks of nursing practice. The text considers two key concepts to understanding the relation of ethics and law to the practice of nursing: the idea of human vulnerability and respect for persons. Through understanding ethics and law in terms of vulnerability and respect, this text provides a fresh understanding of the ethical and legal aspects of committing and witnessing errors in nursing practice. Many varied case studies and practical examples are used throughout to aid students' understanding of the ethical and legal responsibilities of nurses.

Kim Atkins is Manager of the Rural Health Program within the Community and Rural Health Reform Unit in the Department of Health and Human Services in Tasmania. She was formerly Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy Program at the University of Wollongong, and Lecturer, School of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania, where she also taught ethics in the Bachelor of Nursing program. She has also been a lecturer in the Philosophy Department, Macquarie University. Bonnie Britton is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of Tasmania. Her work is in the philosophy of self. She has taught and studied in several fields of philosophy, including ethics and moral philosophy, the self, the mind, metaphysics and logic. Sheryl de Lacey has taught Nursing Ethics at Flinders University since 1991 and is the Chair of the Research Education Committee of the Ethics Centre of South Australia (ECSA). She has diverse clinical experience as a Registered Nurse, which incorporates experience in high technology areas of practice including Intensive Care and Cardiac/Respiratory Units and Assisted Reproductive Technology. Dr de Lacey was an inaugural member of the National Bioethics Consultative Committee and has been a member and Deputy Chair of the South Australian Council on Reproductive Technology, including membership of the Eligibility Review Panel.