Sue T. is the nurse manager for medical-surgical units at acommunity hospital. She is currently enrolled in a nursing master'sdegree program at the local university. As part of the requirementsfor a Nursing Management course, Sue proposes to conduct a studylinking nursing interventions and nursing outcomes. She returns toher place of employment at night for two weeks to audit patientcharts and collect the data she needs for her assignment. She makescopies of the patient records that are particularly helpful andtakes them home to write the final paper.

As Sue is developing her paper, she realizes that theinformation she has collected may be helpful in completing hernursing staff performance evaluations due next month.  She decides to collect further patient outcome data for individualnurses to monitor their performance.

Consider the following

1. Has Sue violated ethical principles by collecting data for acollege assignment? Why or Why not?
2. Has Sue violated ethical principles by collecting patient datafor employee performance evaluations? Why or Why not?
3. What, if anything, should Sue have done differently incompleting her college assignment?
4. What, if anything, should Sue have done differently incompleting her employee performance evaluations?