Nursing's official pronouncements, policy directives, mission and vision statements, strategic plans, nursing philosophies and the like invariably proclaim our commitment to the highest standards (indeed to excellence), to patient safety, to quality care, to collegiality, to mutual respect, to 'patient-centredness', to patient advocacy and more. But for many nurses, there is not merely a gap between these aspirations and clinical reality, there is a Katherine Gorge. Debra Jackson and her research team in Sydney have done some of the best Australian research in this area and it does not make for happy reading. As Debra notes: "Currently, whistleblowing represents a professional dilemma and a personal disaster." [26] This observation does not only apply to nursing. Medical whistleblowers fare equally badly at the hands of their own profession [27] . Indeed in all of the whistleblowing literature, it is difficult, if not impossible to find even one person whose principled actions have NOT resulted in huge personal and professional costs.