Caring and curing revisited: student nurses' perceptions of nurses' and physicians' ethical stances

As a result of a research study involving nursing students, we have discovered some interesting patterns in the way that nursing students perceive physicians' ethical stances in comparison to their perceptions of their own profession's ethical stances. Some of the findings of this study confirm what writers in the literature have pointed out regarding how the nursing profession defines and perceives itself with reference to the medical profession. As a result of our findings, it may be useful for nursing programmes to revise and re-think the ethics of their profession vis-à-vis that of doctors.