The viewing room: A lens for developing ethical comportment

Healthcare is dynamic and complex, and against this background, nursingstudents must negotiate the transition from lay person to healthcare professional.Diverse life experiences and learning styles can further complicate this journey oftransformation. The contemporary role of the nurse includes caring for and makingclinical decisions about patients based on ethical principles. Learning about andintegrating ethical comportment as part of the transformative journey requires nurseeducators to create and implement learning experiences that challenge nursingstudents to think deeply and broadly about the experiences they encounter, to questiontheir previous assumptions and prejudices, to consider the world of healthcare througha new lens, and to reflect on and learn from the process. The judicious use of film hasthe potential to assist students to recognize and develop ethical comportment as theyprepare for real-world clinical practice experiences. In this paper, we present three filmexemplars and related teaching strategies designed to facilitate transformative learningand development of ethical comportment.