Nurses Maintain Top Spot in Ethics Ratings for 20th Year in a Row
Hey, nurses, guess what? You are the most ethical professionals in America! A recent Gallup poll found that nurses ranked highest in ethics, with 79% of Americans saying they trust nurses above all other professionals.
Key Takeaways:
- Nurses have been the most trusted professionals for over 20 years.
- Medical doctors and pharmacists followed close behind in second and third places.
- Nurses’ ethics ratings rose to an all-time high in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, but have fallen in the years since.
People Trust Nurses to Act Ethically
According to the poll, nurses continue to hold the highest ethics rating among Americans: an honor held for more than two decades. The poll was conducted across the United States, with a nationally representative sample of adults from November 9 to December 2, 2022. It showed that US adults believe nurses have high ethical standards, far more than any other profession rated.
The ethics rating for nurses is 10 percentage points lower than the highest rating for nurses, which was recorded in 2020 when they were on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. But they remain the most trusted professionals.
What Makes Nurses So Trustworthy?
You may have heard of the Hippocratic oath all doctors take when they graduate. The one that says “do no harm.” While nurses don’t have a similar ceremony, they are trained well in nursing standards of practice.
All nurses have a unique set of skills and responsibilities, no matter what kind of nursing they do. Standard practice guidelines are broken down by the American Nurses Association into six different areas, like assessing patients and planning care.
These standard practices were designed to guide nurses toward giving the best care possible, based on the latest evidence and ethical principles. By following these standards, nurses stay accountable for their work and can make sure their patients are well-taken care of.
How Did Other Medical Professions Perform?
The poll showed two other health-related professions enjoyed similar bumps in their ethics ratings in 2020: medical doctors and pharmacists. These two professions now rank behind nurses as second and third, receiving high ratings: 62% and 58% respectively.
However, all three professions’ ethics ratings dropped significantly in 2021 and edged down further this year. Pharmacists, who typically earned higher trust ratings than doctors before 2013, have ranked slightly below that profession since the pandemic. Medical doctors’ rating is at its lowest point since 1999, and nurses’ since 2004.
Nurses Hold the Ethical Top Spot Record
Gallup first polled people to determine how honest and ethical different professions are in 1976 and has updated this measure annually since 1990. Nurses have stayed on top of the list every year except one since they were added to the annual ratings in 1999.
That year was 2001 when firefighters earned a record-high 90% rating in their only appearance on the list in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of 343 New York City firefighters. The poll also showed that solid majorities rate the ethics of telemarketers and members of Congress low: less than 10%. Members of the clergy were first measured by Gallup in 1977 and were frequently among the top-rated professions, although recently have fallen out of the top three.
What Do These Results Mean?
The poll results indicate that nurses, medical doctors, and pharmacists remain the most ethically revered professions of those measured by Gallup. However, each of these fields saw a bump in their ethics ratings in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they all now have lower scores than they did before the pandemic.
In 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, partisans’ ratings of these professions were essentially identical, but now the ratings are split along party lines, with Republicans expressing lower trust in these top professions than Democrats.
How You Can Keep Up the Ethical Standard
Nurses play a crucial role in promoting and maintaining ethical practices in their daily work. To ensure the highest level of ethical conduct, employers often remind nurses to always stick to the principles laid out in their professional code of ethics, which includes:
- maintaining confidentiality
- promoting beneficence while avoiding harm
- respecting patient autonomy
You have the power and responsibility to self-analyze your actions. Your skills will grow as you practice, and the more you learn from mistakes and seek out new knowledge, the faster you’ll grow.
How Can Nurses Stay Accountable?
You can keep your ethical muscles toned with self-reflection and collaboration. You’re not in this alone! Why not try a few of these tips:
- Pose ethical questions to a mentor or experienced colleague.
- Stay up-to-date with education and training.
- Take a moment to self-reflect: think about what you’re doing and what you’ve done throughout the shift.
Nurses can empower themselves to make informed and morally sound decisions. Open communication, collaboration with interdisciplinary teams, and advocating for patients’ rights and well-being are essential to uphold ethical standards in nursing practice.
Don’t Be Afraid to Make and Admit Mistakes
As a nurse, you will make mistakes. That is a certainty. The only thing you can do after making a mistake is to own up to it, do everything you can to make it right, and learn from it. Don’t get down on yourself—you are only human.
The nursing world was rocked when Radonda Vaught, an RN in Tennessee, was convicted of gross neglect of an impaired adult and negligent homicide after a medication error in 2017. We’ve yet to see how this will shake out in practice. But most hospitals still have a no-punishment mentality towards medical error. To grow, you must be able to shine a light on errors so you don’t make them again.
Remember, staying ethical is not just a professional responsibility; it is a commitment to providing compassionate, respectful, and high-quality care to every patient.
