Christian Ethics Drug Testing for Nurses: Has the Time Come?

摘要

In the last Christian Ethics column, "The Disease of Choice," Chris*, a nurse who was troubled by the addictive behavior of a colleague, was reluctant to report his concerns. Chris continued to struggle with this issue and discovered, in deciding to report a colleague, that the problem of impaired nurses at his hospital-and nationally-is more complex than he suspected. He learned that the hospital where he works is considering mandatory random drug screening for all nurses. Chris' hospital is not alone. Massachusetts General Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic started requiring drug testing for some physician providers in 2008, according to an ABC News report (Cox, 2008). New Hampshire is one of many states that could require healthcare workers to be subject to as many as four random drug tests per year (Caramenico, 2013).