About this book

This open text was written and edited by:

Antoinette Deshaies, RN, BSPA,MBA

Paula Crossman, MLIS, OER Library Faculty

This book is primarily a curation of open access materials. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the original source authors for creating this important and timely content and for making it openly accessible.

Book Cover

Sam Fraulino, Senior Software Developer/Instructional Multimedia, Paradise Valley Community College

Licensing

This textbook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-NC-SA unless otherwise indicated. This license includes the following terms:

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
• No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Attribution

Each chapter contains in-text citations for conspicuous attribution. See the references list at the end of each chapter to consult the original materials that were used to create this text.

Content for this textbook was remixed or adapted from the following open educational resources:

Abumere, F. A. (2019). Chapter 5. Utilitarianism. In Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics. Rebus is CC-BY.

Barrett, D. H., Ortmann, L.W. Dawson, A., Saenz, C., Reis, A, and G. Bolan (eds.) (2016) Public Health Ethics: Cases Spanning the Globe. (pp. 3–35). Libretexts is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Bowen. C., L. Draper, & H. Moore. (2024). 5.3 Cultural practice in nursing. In Fundamentals of Nursing. Houston, TX: OpenStax is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Brown, J. & J. Lazzara. (2025). 9.3 Health in American Culture. In The Connected Mind. Open Maricopa is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Brown, J., and J. Lazzara. Chapter 12.1 Cultural Influences on Morality. In The Connected Mind: Exploring Psychology Through Culture. Open Maricopa is CC-BY-NC-SA

Bush, J. & J. Van Der Like. (2023). Legal and ethical issues. In Mental health is a verb. University of West Florida is CC-NY-NC-SA.

COMPOST Collective. (2025). 4. Health care ethics. In Bioethics: A coursebook. Open Book Publishers. DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0449.04 is CC-BY-NC 4.0

Cram, Bridgette. Week 10: Identifying Your Values and Skills.  OER Commons is CC-BY.

Dimock, M. & A. Fisher. (2017). Ch. 7: Part III applied ethics: Euthanasia.  In Ethics for A-Level. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers is CC-BY 4.0

Ernstmeyer, K. & E. Christman. (2024).  5.6 Other Legal Issues. In Nursing management & professional concepts 2 e. WIS Tech Open is CC-BY 4.0.

Ernstmeyer, K., & Christman, E. (Eds.). (2025). Nursing: Mental Health and Community Concepts, 2e by Chippewa Valley Technical College is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Ernstmeyer, K. & E. Christman. (2024). Chapter 5.6 Other Legal Issues. In Nursing Management and Professional Concepts 2e. WisTech Open is CC-BY 4.0.

Gretchev, A. (2025). Unit 12 – The future of genomics and nursing. In Precision Healthcare: Genomics-Informed Nursing. eCampus Ontario is CC-BY-NC.

Gurung, S. Chapter 2: Overview of ethics when evaluating healthcare services. In Medical metrics for health facilities. CUNY is CC-BY-NC 4.0

Howe, D. L., et al. (2022). Healthcare in the United States: Navigating the basics of a complex system. University of North Georgia Press is CC-BY-SA.

Jackman, T. (2024). Ch. 4.2 Torts. In Legal Fundamentals of Healthcare Law. University of West Florida Pressbooks is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Jones, T., Belli, C., and E.  Julyan. Chapter 11. 5 Moral Development. In Understanding Human Development: Prenatal Through Adolescence. Open Oregon is CC-BY.

Kao, Y. (2019). Chapter 4. What’s in it for me? In Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics. Rebus is CC-BY.

Lewis, J. (2026). 7.1 What is dying with dignity? In On Death and Dying (2nd Edition) from eCampusOntario is CC-BY-NC.

Lewis, J. (2026). 7.2 Palliative care. In On Death and Dying (2nd Edition) from eCampusOntario is CC-BY-NC.

Lowey, S.E. (2015). Ethical concerns in end-of-life care. In Nursing care at the end of life. Open SUNY Textbooks is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Meynell, L.  and C. Paron (2023). Chapter 9. Rights and Privileges. In Applied Ethics Primer. Atlantic Canada Pressbooks Network is CC-BY-NC.

Morales, F. (2026). Chapter 5: Health law, policy, and ethics. In. Introduction to Public Health. Libretexts from Coastline College is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Niedzwiecki, B. (2024). Chapter 1 Privacy and security of the electronic health record. In Using computers in healthcare. WisTech Open is CC-BY 4.0

Price, P.C. et al. (2017). 3.2 From Moral Principles to Ethics Codes. In Research methods in psychology. Washington State University is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Richardson, E. (2026). Chapter 1: Ethics and professionalism in healthcare. In Introduction to medical ethics and law. New Mexico Open Educational Resources Consortium is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Riser, D. et al. (2024). 17.2 End-of-life care. In Lifespan Development. OpenStax is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Smith, N. (2022). 10.1 The Challenge of Bioethics. In Introduction to Philosophy. OpenStax is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Svolba, D. (2026). Chapter 5 – Should we select the best children? In Arguments in Medical Ethics. Fitchburg State University is CC-BY-NC-SA.

Adoption & Feedback

If you plan to use or adapt the book (or chapters), we’d love to hear about it! Please let us know on Adoption Form.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for the book, please complete the Feedback Form for Healthcare Ethics in the Real World (First edition)

Accessibility Statement

The web version of Healthcare Ethics in the Real World has been designed with accessibility in mind by incorporating the following features:

• It has been optimized for people who use screen-reader technology.
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This statement was last updated on August 7, 2026.

H5P Knowledge Checks

We have created approximately 40 H5P knowledge checks to make the text interactive and to give students more opportunities to test their understanding.

Many of the H5P activities were created using the assistance of Gemini to help draft multiple choice questions, drag-the-words, and true/false questions using the textual editor in Pressbooks’ H5P content creator.