Purpose: The study aim was to understand the experiences of intensive care unit (ICU) nurses in labor union activities. Methods: A descriptive qualitative study and content analysis were conducted. The participants included nine ICU nurses who shared their experiences with labor union activities. The data were collected through in-depth interviews. Results: The experiences of ICU nurses with labor union activities encompassed five themes: “The Initial Step in Union Activities”, “Benefits Derived from Union Participation”, “Concerns Regarding Union Activities”, “The Non-Omnipotence of Unions”, and “Achieving Mutual Benefits through Union Activities”. Conclusion: The study findings revealed that ICU nurses strive to improve their work and the nursing environment through labor unions, despite facing negative perceptions of union involvement.

This study was conducted to in-depth understand and describe the thoughts and experiences of nursing students in the practice of the intensive care unit. Data was collected through focus group interviews with 14 nursing students who voluntarily participated in the study targeting students who practiced the intensive care unit and analyzed by the content analysis. As a result of the study, two themes, 'ethical challenges faced in intensive care unit practice' and 'incomplete reflection, were derived. The categories included in the former were 'feeling wrong in the appearance of a nurse', 'thinking about a good nurse', 'thinking about the cause of the wrong practice', and the categories included in the latter were ''fear of being assimilated', and 'pledge oneself by put yourself in someone else's shoes’. Based on these results, it is necessary to develop ethics education to become a nurse who can form correct ethical comfortment, including ethics education in clinical practice instruction as well as classroom instruction.

The restraints are used in the intensive care unit as a way to restrict the movement of the whole body or part of the body for the safety of the patient, such as maintaining medical equipment, preventing falls and patient self tube removal through regulating the patient's behavior. However, the physical restraints are used for the physical safety of the patient, but that is cause a variety of physical and psychological complications. Thus, nurses in intensive care units who apply restraint on face an ethical dilemma in the confrontation between the nurse's duty to improve the patient's health and protect the patient's safety and the value of the patient's autonomy and dignity. We have two examples are proposed to identify the ethical dilemma situation faced by nurses, to induce an active attitude towards elimination by establishing exactly restraint - removal criteria. In addition, it is proposed to seek a balance of individual values through active communication between the patient and the medical staff regarding the application of the restraint.

With the enforcement of the “Act on decisions on life-sustaining treatment for patients at the end of life” in February 2018, discussion on advanced care planning (ACP) has increased. However, as decisions on life-sustaining treatments are still made in the intensive care unit, deaths related to the suspension of life-sustaining treatment account for a large proportion of deaths in the intensive care unit. The nurses encounter challenges in supporting the patient's dignified death; they experience an ethical dilemma in the ambiguity due to a lack of guidance on legal responsibilities regarding decisions on life-sustaining treatment. In order for the nurses to perform as a supporter providing care to the patients and as a advocate during the process of decision-making on life-sustaining treatment, there should be a systemic change to ensure the nurses' participation. In addition, an open and continuous discussion should be proposed to cultivate nurses’ ethical sensitivity and moral courage. This paper reports two ethical examples related to the decisions on life-sustaining treatment occurred in intensive care units of a tertiary hospital.