The University of Notre Dame Australia‟s Centre for Faith, Ethics and Society is revolutionising the way in which its staff teach ethics to Nursing and Medicine students, thanks to a research grant from the Mary Philippa Brazill Foundation.

Research has found that while professionals across a range of industries were capable of reliably identifying incidents of malpractice in the workplace – such as corruption, sexual abuse and mistreatment of clients or staff – they felt that their organisations did not provide a supportive ethical framework in which they could address or report the incidents.

The Centre hopes to affect change in this area by equipping Notre Dame staff members with innovative and creative methodological approaches to the teaching of ethics.
Associate Professor Sandra Lynch, Director of the Centre for Faith, Ethics and Society, said supplying tomorrow‟s health care professionals with the tools to act upon their values was imperative for the direction of the industry.

“The project will recommend teaching practices, which provide students with scenarios in which they are faced with an ethical dilemma and must explore strategies to enable them to act upon their values,” Associate Professor Lynch said.

“We would like to move beyond theorising about „what ethical behaviour is‟ to equipping students with the knowledge of how to go about dealing with multifaceted ethical issues and acting in a way that effects positive change in their workplaces.”