After completing the ethics assignments, I realized even more so that nurses play a huge role in the contribution to ethical conduct of research and implementation of research findings. Especially after watching the film “Miss Ever’s Boys” in which the main character is a nurse who participated first hand in the famous Tuskegee Study. This film demonstrates just how important nurses are in maintaining ethical conduct for all patients. Miss Evers was basically caught in between taking orders from the head doctor performing the study which involved lying to the participants, or maintaining ethical conduct and actually informing the participants on the true nature of the study. In this situation, the nurse has a huge ethical responsibility she should follow through with, yet decides not to. This situation shows just how big of a role nurses have in protecting and providing the best ethical care for their patients, as the patients in this study were the ones who receiving harm.

It is very important for nurses to understand the historical evolution and principles of research ethics. Any nurse in today’s society would understand that Miss Evers was not fulfilling her ethical responsibility, ultimately putting her patients in greater harm. Nurses today can learn from that decision of not following ethical conduct in the research, and the consequences that went along with it.

By achieving the course objectives, this is allowing me to learn about past mistakes and knowing how not to repeat them and the importance of not repeating those mistakes. It overall will help me become a better nurse because I have a much better understanding of the importance of ethical conduct in research and quality improvement.