Every year, I meet a new group of postgraduate nursing students who come together to study ethics at an
advanced level. For some, it is the first time in their careers that they have been able to express their ethical
concerns in such a forum, or in some cases, in any formal setting; for others, it is a confirmation that not all
perceived failures relating to moral issues are necessarily of their or their nursing colleagues’ own making.
For all, it is a bitter-sweet confirmation of the difficulties involved in dealing with those sometimes painful
moral problems that they have encountered over what is often several years of practice. Indeed, it is as if
through the exchange of narratives, each student feels not only marginally unburdened but free to finally
state those things that really matter to them in a forum where others actually appreciate their opinions. But
then at some point, we come to an examination of what is currently called nursing ‘moral distress’, and
slowly but surely, a rising degree of exasperation and annoyance emerges around the room, as one by one
the students all focus on the same question, namely, ‘What are we to do about moral distress?’