An ethical paradigm underpins Roberta’s practice. This ethical foundation guides Roberta in her thinking about inclusion and belonging and supports Roberta in all facets of her current practice as a Clinical Nurse Specialist for Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice.

Roberta uses the AACN Synergy Model for Patient Care to guide both care delivery and as part of the professional model she uses. The model specifies that it is the needs or characteristics of patients and families that influence and drive the nurse care competencies. Nurse competencies include clinical judgment, advocacy and moral agency, caring practices, collaboration, systems thinking, response to diversity, facilitation of learning, and clinical inquiry. These competencies are underpinned by a foundation of ethics. Demonstration of these competencies is consistent with Provisions 1 and 2 In the Code of Ethics for Nurses where there is a respect for human dignity and the primacy of the patient’s interests.

For ten years, Roberta served as a member of the Institutional Review Board of Emory University. In this role, she evaluated clinical trial protocols to ensure the ethical duty for the protection of human subjects. The Nurses Code of Ethics speaks to the protection of the rights of human subjects in research, and Roberta was a member of the committee responsible for ensuring this right.

With the pandemic, Roberta was appointed as a member of a system-level team to develop ethics policies for the decisions affecting resource consumption-the what ifs-what if there were not enough ventilators or other resources were unavailable in sufficient quantities to meet patient needs? The team developed the policies and algorithms that would provide guidance to care, team members, if these difficult decisions were required. Fortunately, clinicians were not called upon to exercise the approved algorithm for prioritizing or removing patients from a ventilator or choosing between patients for allocation of scarce resources. 

Roberta is the co-chair of the Emory University Hospital/Emory Wesley Woods/Emory University Orthopaedics & Spine Hospital Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice Council. Through the work of this Council, she contributes to developing, maintaining, and implementing standards of professional practice and scholarly inquiry. A study of which she was the co-PI was a study about equitable treatment. This study looked at differences in care and care outcomes across disparate groups of patients and found none. With courage, she may have to offer questions or concerns related to coercion. She prioritizes ethical awareness and ethical decision-making in discussions related to the approval of clinical inquiry projects.

Roberta is a constant support to team members. She embraces teamwork and elevates team members. She is passionate about meaningful recognition as a promotion of well-being. She helps all team members create abstracts for consideration for conferences. As a steward of quality and safety, Roberta helps units review all aspects of unit practice, including patient experience, safety, quality, and employee engagement. Teams collaborate to improve practice, and then Roberta helps them apply for meaningful recognition such as Beacon or PRISM Awards. This demonstrates Roberta’s constant focus on performance and performance standards and engages others to promote a culture of safety.

In summary, Roberta consistently demonstrates professional and ethical standards as defined in the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses.