The Active Conscience: Yet Another Reason Why Nurses Rock

An active conscience is defined as an inner awareness of right and wrong, good and bad, that a person uses to constantly steer his or her conduct toward taking the ethically righteous course of action in life.

Having an active conscience is extremely important, because without one, there’s not much else to stop a person from perpetrating awful acts against others, perhaps except the external threat of legal punishment. Then again, people who do not possess active consciences would most likely do something bad if they felt they had a strong chance of not getting caught.

Based on purely anecdotal support, I would say that the overwhelming majority of nurses have active consciences that guide them to do the right things, even when the most difficult situations arise. As an example, nurses have topped the list on Gallup surveys for many years, having been voted the ’most trusted’ professionals by members of the public who respond to the poll. Nurses, who have led the rankings for 11 consecutive years, were ranked "high" or "very high" for honesty and ethics among 85% of respondents (Laidman, 2012). In other words, a large segment of the population trusts us to tell the truth, be ethical, and do right by them.

Not all individuals have active consciences, which leads them to lie, cheat, steal, mislead, falsely blame, and engage in many other unsavory exploits that devastate peoples’ lives. For instance, the shady insurance salesman who convinces unsuspecting people to purchase useless discount plans by deceptively claiming they are health insurance policies lacks an active conscience. This is obvious because the blatant deceit does not bother him one bit. Also, the live-in caregiver who sneakily makes unauthorized bank withdrawals from accounts belonging to her trusting elderly client lacks an active conscience because the theft does not create any inner struggles between right and wrong.

Unfortunately, several of the entities that employ nurses are filled with managerial employees who seem to not have active consciences. Many nurses wonder how some hospital administrators, chief nursing officers, and unit managers are able to look the other way while understaffing, a lack of supplies, and poor working conditions negatively affect patient care. Some nurses are puzzled by the current trend of placing customer service on the highest pedestal while patient care gets placed on the back burner. Other nurses stare in disbelief as the unit manager is rushing them to transfer the deceased patient out of room 401 to make room for a new admit coming from the emergency room. How can this be happening? Is the love of monetary profit causing some peoples’ consciences to become inactive?

In this difficult healthcare climate, nurses should be immensely proud of themselves for continuing to act upon their active consciences to do the right thing for their patients. Without an active conscience, the world would become a frightening place with people who are incapable of feeling shame, guilt and remorse.