Teaching students about integrity

[BonnieSc]

I've been alarmed to see two responses (at least) in this thread from students who seem to regard it as normal, even expected, to falsify documentation in patient charts.

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/false-documentation-more-702736.html

Now, despite the hard-and-fast stance I take on this issue, I do know there are some gray areas/situations, and that occasional instances of stretching the truth don't make someone a bad nurse.

But this is just the kind of attitude that my professors claimed my class was going to have, back in 2005, when it turned out that several students were cheating on tests and projects and didn't think it was a big deal. (One professor went so far as to claim that everyone in the nursing program considered cheating normal, which ****** a lot of us off.) Some of the faculty wanted students who cheated to be expelled, on the grounds that they wouldn't be trustworthy nurses. The students protested that cheating on tests (which they promised not to do again) had nothing to do with whether they would be honest nurses...

Student nurses are sometimes exasperating to floor nurses in their desire to see everything done perfectly. But I think I prefer that attitude to this one.

Perhaps some of you would be interested in showing your students this thread, or summarizing it, and having a discussion...