Make a follow-up of a student's weekly discussion and respond with your opinion regarding to her post

——You don't have to post this in APA format necessarily, it's just giving feedback to the student with a paragraph, it doesn't have to be a lot of text—-

Dr. Jeffery and Class,

Florence Nightingale is credited as the first person to perform rigorous tests, organize statistical data and publish best practices in the field of nursing. Many of Nightingale’s core tenets still stand today, giving the nursing profession a template on which to improve research and EBP to achieve better patient outcomes. Since Nightingales time, advances in technology have made research possible for all nurses. In the not-so-distant past, it wasn't reasonable for all nurses to be able to engage in active changes of nursing best practices. Now, it is a responsibility. Her example of advocating and fighting for change and improvements at the national level also helped pave the way for the creation of the National Institute of Nursing Research in 1986, underscoring the importance of nursing research in present clinical practice (Houser, 2023)

According to our reading this week, research seeks to develop new knowledge using a specific process of informed consent for participants, subject to peer review, and encompass replication (Houser, 2023). This rigorous process benefits nursing while lending the evidence and scientific data to evidence-based practice (EBP). EBT is about interpreting existing information or knowledge and applying it to our daily clinical decision making, thus getting better patient outcomes. While EBP has often benefited from research, it also takes into account clinical knowledge from nursing leaders as well as patient individuality (Conner, 2014).

It is hopeful to think that ethics violations around research and experiments will lessen with greater knowledge, as to not repeat the many ills of history. The US Department of Energy (DOE) website discloses that in 1963, Carl Heller, a renowned endocrinologist was asked by NASA and the DOE to examine the effects of radiation on the human body, specifically the male reproductive organs (1995). This data was to be used to determine specifics regarding men in space and the potential harm of the sun and flares to the body. As was commonplace at the time, Heller experimented on volunteering prison inmates in Oregon and Washington by injecting controlled amounts of radiation into the inmates’ testes. The inmates were told that they would be vasectomized and may experience some mild burning. They were told that there would be no health benefit, but they were incentivized by a small stipend for participation.  This experience led to many health issues, including cancer and large amounts of pain. In later years, during an oversight process, it was clear there were many ethics violations and inmates were not given accurate disclosure of possible side effects. If I were involved with research, I would prioritize the first principle of respect for persons. It is imperative that the participants understand the entirety of the study and are advocated for (Chamberlain, 2023). I would also hesitate to use an at-risk population such as a prison population, unless it directly pertained to this group, as well as possible benefits to them in the process. I believe that without full disclosure, this is an unethical practice that could lead to participant injury and faulty outcomes, which doesn’t adhere to beneficence.

References

Chamberlain week one lesson: Intro to Evidence Based Practice, 2023.    

Conner, B. T. (2014).  .  American Nurse Today, 9(6).

Department of Energy (February 1995). Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments

Houser, J. (2023).  Nursing research: Reading, using, and creating evidence (4th ed.). Jones and Bartlett.