july 8, 2005 -- today thesun (u.k.) ran a short, unsigned piece reporting that a group of nurses is calling for a young cardiac nurse to be "struck off" the list of licensed nurses by the nurses and midwifery council because she appeared to have had "unsafe sex" during a "boozy orgy" on the u.k. reality show "big brother." this situation raises interesting issues about nurses' professional obligations away from their main work settings, including any duties to model responsible public health conduct or conform to a particular moral code....
Views on this over the years have really changed. When I was in school a few nurses had their pictures taken in sexy nursing garb for a magazine. All my classmates and instructors thought she should lose her license.
The Nightengale Pledge about 'refraining from what is deleterious and mischievous' was more attended to in days past than it is today. People laugh about it now. But I wonder if that's good. I always felt an obligation to my profession, even in my private life. No I'm not perfect, but there's lines I wouldn't cross. One was when I had friends using illegal drugs. I didn't feel that as a nurse I could risk hanging out with them. Another friend was quite promiscuous and loud about her being a nurse in some wild circles...it made me uncomfortable and I ended the friendship.
Are there some lines nurses shouldn't cross without risking their license? Particularly when they use their nurse status in their 'mischief'. I don't know. I just followed my own conscience I guess.
It sounds as though a lot of people think that it's not so much what you do in your private life, but how public you are about it, which seems like a whole different issue. Heaven knows I've worked with people whose lives where wholly respectable, but who were waaaay too public about them nonetheless (I'm thinking specifically here about someone who talked at length one tea break about how she determined her most fertile days by the colour and consistancy of...). And converesely, I've known people who were reticent and discreet, with private lives that knocked my socks off.
I don't want to know the intimate details of my colleagues lives. At least you can turn off the TV.
I'm very nervous about including a morals clause in nursing positions. As has already been asked - whose morals? Because any such decision would necessarily reflect the standards of the rule makers. Or would it be more like "we don't have anything formal, but we'll know inappropriate behaviour when we see/hear about/read about it"?
If I professionally perform my work, am punctual and reliable, and if my personal life does not intrude upon the workplace, then it is irrelevant that I am a dominatrix in my personal life. (Or gay, or swing, or dress up in womens clothing, or attend protest marches, or belong to an activism group, or am not Christian, or drink alcohol...)
When they decide to revoke licenses' for attorneys/politicians who have horrible sexual morals with certain young women/men in their workforce and revoke physicians' licenses for same, then maybe, the nurse can be included in this little cliche'.
If I professionally perform my work, am punctual and reliable, and if my personal life does not intrude upon the workplace, then it is irrelevant that I am a dominatrix in my personal life. (Or gay, or swing, or dress up in womens clothing, or attend protest marches, or belong to an activism group, or am not Christian, or drink alcohol...)
No. Of course NOT. what one does away from the workplace is a coonstitutional right. it should NOT at all matter one bit unless the nurse IS proven dangerous and or has been arrested FoR such behavior.. my word, how far will these (some) questions go? It is (here anyhow) still the USa and we have a constitution to protect these rights. IMO
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Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN
12,126 Posts
She didn't help it, though.