ABSTRACT
While early textbooks provide a foundational source for nursing ethics, there is much more to read. Other sources include the first dissertation on ethical problems in nursing practice, “first chapters” of early medical-surgical textbooks, ICN Nursing Congress speeches, journal articles, commencement addresses, ethics committees’ minutes, state board ethics requirements, and more. While many of these represent the same authors who wrote textbooks, others of these bring in new persons and different voices, not just those of nursing’s leaders. The content of these works, examined here, often coordinate with the textbooks, but they also raise different issues or have an expanded topical focus. Together with the nursing ethics textbooks, these sources will fill out a broader picture of nursing ethics. Among these works, pride of place belongs to Sister Rose Hélène Vaughan’s master’s degree thesis. This chapter provides a critique of the non-textbook literature. A select set of the earliest shorter texts, now in the public domain, are provided for the reader to have at hand.
