Provisions 7-9 Duties to the Broader Community

Provisions 7-9 of the Code of Ethics for Nurses discuss the broader range of a nurse's responsibilities, specifically in advancing the profession of nursing, such as through active participation in professional associations. It is also in this section that nurses are reminded of their responsibility to collaborate with other health professionals and the public to work toward social reform in those areas that contribute to human illness and distress, such as poverty. Although many of these ethical obligations have been discussed earlier in the Code, it is in this last section of provisions that the professional associations duties are made explicit and nursing's overall concern for human rights is discussed.

In Section 7, nurses are reminded to contribute to the larger spectrum of nursing through "leadership, activities, and the viability of their professional organizations." (Code of Ethics, p. 22) To become a nurse, then, is not to practice nursing as merely a job, but to see oneself through a professional's eyes, which means collaborating with other nurses to advance the profession. Through professional associations, standards and guidelines for nurses are developed and advanced. Because a professional has obligations to society as a whole, Provision 7 refers to the obligation nurses have to engage in "ongoing scholarly activities." (Code of Ethics, p. 23)

Do nurses have an ethical obligation to pay attention to world hunger? World peace? Pollution? Relying on ethical theories of justice, Provision 8 answers these questions. Nurses are to be committed to the resolution of social ills that hinder the well-being of all people. Many feel nurses now have a significant opportunity to challenge the loss of the patient-centered ethic and step into more highly visible roles as public advocates. With nursing's patient-centered history, Rambur concludes that nursing "is the profession poised to take this leader/advocate role." (Rambur, p 64)

By making nursing's professional duties and commitments explicit to society, the Code serves to increase the trust between professional nurses and those they serve. With this trust secure, nurses will be in an ever better position of power and leadership "to bring about the social change necessary to enhance" health care. (Fowler, p. 72)

Again, collaboration is necessary for this to happen. Nurses, individually and collectively, have an obligation to educate the public through different means about the health of individual communities. "The efficacy of the role of nurses envisioned in the Code largely depends on group action. It is often only within appropriately structured institutions that individual nurses can act as autonomous and collaborative workers. Given institutional inertia and conservatism, such structures are unlikely to be erected without concerted action by nurses as a group." (Alexandra, p. 227)

Provision 9 addresses professional associations and their responsibilities in "articulating nursing values, for maintaining the integrity of the profession and its practice, and for shaping social policy." (Code of Ethics, ANA publications, p. 24) As individual nurses have these obligations, so do their professional associations.