title: Undergraduate healthcare ethics education, moral resilience, and the role of ethical theories.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This article combines foundational and empirical aspects of healthcare education and develops a framework for teaching ethical theories inspired by pragmatist learning theory and recent work on the concept of moral resilience. It describes an exemplary implementation and presents data from student evaluation.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  After a pilot implementation in a regular ethics module, the feasibility and acceptance of the novel framework by students were evaluated.
  
  
  METHODS
  In addition to the regular online module evaluation, specific questions referring to the teaching of ethical theories were added using simple (yes/no) and Likert rating answer formats.
  
  
  METHODS
  At the Bern University of Applied Sciences, a total of 93 students from 2 parallel sub-cohorts of the bachelor's program in nursing science were sent the online survey link after having been exposed to the same modular contents. A total of 62% of all students participated in the survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  The survey was voluntary and anonymous. Students were free to write their name and additional comments.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Students consider ethical theories-as taught within the proposed framework-as practically applicable, useful, and transferable into practice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Teaching ethical theories within the proposed framework overcomes the shortcomings described by current research. Students do not consider the mutually exclusive character of ethical theories as an insurmountable problem.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The proposed framework is likely to promote the effectiveness of healthcare ethics education. Inspired by pragmatist learning theory, it enables students to consider ethical theories as educative playgrounds that help them to "frame" and "name" the ethical issues they encounter in daily practice, which is seen as an expression of moral resilience. Since it does not advocate a single ethical theory, but is open to the diversity of traditions that shape ethical thinking, it promotes a culturally sensitive, ethically reflected healthcare practice.
authors: University of Zurich, Switzerland settimio.monteverde@uzh.ch.
authors: Settimio
authors: S
authors: Monteverde
mesh_terms: D003479:Curriculum; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; D028663:Ethical Theory; D004993:Ethics, Nursing / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D009014:Morals; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland
keywords: Education; ethical theories; healthcare ethics; moral complexity; moral resilience