Abstract:  Ethical Knowing in Providing Care for a Teen Mom

Orem’s Supportive-Educative system theory provided a conceptual foundation to care for a young mother’s critical needs to learn how to care for her infant.   Esthetic and ethical patterns of knowing were particularly useful in implementing the needed education.  By employing these patterns of knowing, the student nurses could more accurately plan the most effective approach to teaching this new mother, in an approach based upon empathy as well as expertise.