It is not surprising therefore that so much thought and energy is devoted to this subject in nurse education and in the pages of journals such as Nursing Ethics . The influences on decision making do change in many different ways and therefore need to be constantly reviewed. A similar underlying theme is the importance of narrative. Ann marie Begley writes about a tool for student nurses to learn decision making by presenting a situation that has all the drama of a novel. For women and their partners who have longed to have a child, and finally succeeded in conceiving, finding themselves 'too pregnant' can be a predicament.
Situations become problems when there is a lack of preparedness.
This scenario is dramatic, but a very real tool for student nurses to learn ethical reasoning, caring and decision making. Although this particular problem mainly has relevance in developed countries, the argument can be applied in situations in developing countries, where the difficulty may simply be too many pregnancies. Thus, a teaching tool in one setting can be adapted and considered from different cultural angles, an increasingly important development. The authors used western parameters of ethics and decision making, testing their students for their capacity to decide. The students had some difficulties, but one wonders if they were due to their professional inexperience and perhaps lack of life experience, or if they would have been more at ease using a different set of criteria more relevant to their own culture and background.