Public evening lecture by Professor Dr Annette Riedel (Esslingen University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Social Work, Education and Care)

Due to the fact that nursing is a relational profession and professional behaviour is based on interaction, nurses are often the first point of contact for death wishes and requests for assisted suicide. Such situations are ethically highly complex and morally challenging, also due to the fact that the professional ethical framework and the professional mandate do not provide a clear answer here. Exemplary ethical areas of tension are worked out. The potential consequences for nurses and the associated professional ethical requirements for ethically justified professional behaviour are also developed.

Annette Riedel is a trained geriatric nurse and holds a degree in gerontology. She completed a Master's degree in Palliative Care at the University of Freiburg. She completed her doctorate at the University of Heidelberg on nursing training and wrote her habilitation at the University of Osnabrück on a nursing-specific palliative care topic. She has been a professor at Esslingen University of Applied Sciences since 2008, specialising in nursing science and ethics. She has been a member of the German Ethics Council since 2020. Her research focuses on palliative care, care ethics and hospice care.

Moderation: Dr Anna-Henrikje Seidlein