CWC Nursing Program responds to comment from local lawmaker, sponsor of Medical Ethics Defense Act

(Riverton, WY) -The Central Wyoming College Nursing Program is responding to a comment Wyoming Rep. Pepper Ottman, R-Riverton, made about local nursing students during a recent legislative meeting.

Ottman made the comment while presenting House Bill 222 – Medical Ethics Defense Act-2 to the House Labor, Health, and Social Services Committee last month.

The legislation, which has since been approved by the Wyoming House of Representatives, would give health care professionals, health care institutions, and health care payers the right not to participate in or pay for health care services that violate their conscience. 

During her testimony on the bill, Ottman told the committee that there have already been instances in Wyoming where medical students – like those enrolled in the nursing program at Central Wyoming College – are “required to do things that they do not want to do.”

This week, CWC Nursing Program Director Dr. Stacey Stanek said she “can only assume that this statement is in reference to requirements set forth by our clinical partners to protect their vulnerable patients/residents.”

CWC values those clinical partnerships, Stanek said, and the CWC Nursing Program “will continue to follow the mandates set forth by those agencies who so generously allow our students to provide care within their organizations.”

“CWC nursing faculty aspire to educate nurses who care about others and are willing to take simple steps to ensure the safety and well-being of our community,” Stanek said. “At no time do we ask those students to violate their ‘conscience’ in the provision of care.”

Stanek went on to point out that Ottman’s use of the CWC Nursing Program as an example for why HB 222 should pass “actually serves to highlight the fundamental problem with the bill,” which would “allow students in healthcare fields to refuse the simplest of requirements – like basic screening for illness prior to caring for vulnerable patients – and be legally protected in doing so.”

“Nurses have a duty to care and must uphold the ethical standards set forth by the American Nurses Association,” Stanek said. “Like all healthcare workers, we are free to work anywhere and select employment that works best for us and our belief system. This does not need to be legislated, especially when those laws potentially erode nursing standards and limit our duty to care.”

HB 222 was introduced in the Wyoming Senate and referred to the Senate Labor, Health and Social Services Committee last week.