Duties to Self: The Nurse as a Person of Dignity and Worth

There is a historical emphasis on duties to self, or self-regarding duties, in nursing's ethics heritage literature from the 1860s to 1965. Yet, as nursing education shifted to university settings and society and nursing moved away from a virtue-based ethics to a duty-based ethics, the emphasis on self-regarding duties was lost. In the 2001 revision of the American Nurses Association's Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements, that emphasis is reclaimed and restored. The 2015 version of the Code further develops and expands the ethical obligation of duties to self. The aggregate duty or principle of "duties to self" includes attention to personal health, safety, and well-being, preserving one's wholeness of character and integrity, maintaining competence, and continuing personal and professional growth.