Becoming a successful medical professional, including a nurse, includes graduating from an accredited nursing program from a college or university. A nurse also must show clinical skills as well as character traits such as accountability, respect, and maintaining ethics while performing the job. Another important feature a nurse should have is to both achieve and maintain academic integrity.

Understanding Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is more than just not plagiarizing a term paper or cheating on a course exam, but also includes responsibility, trust, and honesty. These are all important things to have while working with people (often in distress and pain) every day for the course of a career. This is fundamental to a nurse's role and their overall responsibility as a health professional. Nursing schools should promote integrity instead of focusing on simply catching cheaters. This academic integrity focus will have a great impact on learning and behavior overall in an educational institution.

Nursing instructors oftentimes set the bar high for students and are clear on their expectations when it comes to academic integrity in their classrooms. As a more positive lesson, instructors can promote both personal and academic integrity while giving cheating less of a focus. However, the consequences for breaching these policies should be clear in case they do occur and so that students know what to expect if they break these rules. The real problem seems to be understanding the importance of being honest. The International Center for Academic Integrity found that many students understood that they shouldn't plagiarize, but didn't know why exactly. This means that they avoided doing so as they didn't want to get in trouble, not because they realized the ethical standpoint of cheating.

Why is Academic Integrity Important to the Nursing Field?

When it comes to nurses and medical professionals, failing to show academic integrity is concerning. This is because it could directly affect quality patient care and the outcome of said care. Honesty is a basic value and academic integrity is important in all environments, not just in the classroom. In the nursing profession, it is especially important as the well-being of one's patient in their care depend on it. With such high ethical standards in the profession, one would assume that this dishonesty would not happen in nursing programs. However, that simply isn't true.

Because of this, it is important for nursing programs to establish clear student policies related to academic dishonesty that a student fully can understand.

Learn More From a Student Discipline Defense Attorney Today

If you or your student have been accused of academic dishonesty in any capacity, Joseph D. Lento can help. With years of experience, skills, and resources to help clients facing disciplinary actions, he can advise throughout all proceedings and even speak on your behalf when appropriate. To learn more about best steps forward, contact his office today where you can discuss your situation and ask any questions you may have. Joseph D. Lento is a professional attorney with a proven track record of successfully helping students like you in the same situation.