Teaching Ethics to Nurses

Abstract

Nursing education in the United States was strongly influenced by a hospital-based apprenticeship system that developed in Great Britain after the Crimean War and was imported to the United States in 1883. Commonly called the Nightingale model, early American nursing education was hierarchical and stressed learning by doing or habitual practice. As students matured, they assumed more responsibility for sicker patients, engaged in ward management activities, and taught and mentored younger students. In their third and final year, they were often placed in charge of hospital wards.