In January, the American Nurses Association (ANA) unveiled the revised Code of Ethics for Nurses, widely regarded as the gold standard for the future of nursing practice. Updated once each decade, the Code serves as a moral compass for the profession, evolving alongside the cultural, scientific, sociopolitical, and ethical shifts shaping modern healthcare.
I had the distinct honor of serving as a member of the expert panel entrusted with the 2025 revision. For 18 months, our distinguished and diverse group, guided by the director of the Center for Ethics and Human Rights and the senior policy and ethics advisor of the ANA, engaged in reflective deliberation on the urgent and emerging forces impacting nursing and the broader healthcare environment. Together, we considered the defining issues of our time: systemic racism, the climate crisis, artificial intelligence, global health, civic professionalism, allyship, and the moral implications of care in an age of rapid change.
Amid this vast constellation of concerns, one concept stood out to me for its quiet gravity and elusive power: human flourishing. Difficult to define and even harder to encode, it nonetheless lies at the heart of what it means to be a good nurse. Absent from the 2015 Code, the term “flourishing” now appears 11 times in the revised edition, woven into Provisions 5, 9, and 10. The Code defines flourishing not as an emotion, but as “an aspirational state… about a life well lived, both as an individual and in community with others.” Far from a simple ethical ideal, flourishing is inextricably linked to virtue, goodness, and our capacity to live in harmonious relationship with one another.
A recent New York Times op-ed echoed this view, describing flourishing as “a state of affairs in which all aspects of your life are relatively good, including the social environments in which you live.” Whether framed philosophically or pragmatically, a few elements remain constant: optimal well-being, a sense of purpose, and the presence of nurturing, reciprocal relationships.
The Code reminds us that flourishing isn’t an individual pursuit alone; it’s a collective responsibility. Nurses, bound by a deep professional ethic, must see themselves as stewards of both personal and communal well-being. The implication is profound: Nurses and society are co-authors in the effort to create conditions in which all people can thrive. At a time when healthcare systems strain under the weight of burnout, inequality, erasure of historical truths, and technological disruption, the call for human flourishing may be among the most radical statements the profession can make. It invites us not just to survive, but to live well—together.
The price and the value of nursing
In the broader metrics of modern life, flourishing frequently is conflated with financial success, a point made especially clear on college campuses, where institutions proudly advertise the starting salaries of their graduates. At New York University, where I teach, the class of 2021 saw the highest average entry-level salaries among graduates of the College of Nursing: $98,049. Engineering followed at $83,040, and the school of business at $81,440. One of my recent students from the January 2025 cohort, newly hired at a Magnet®-designated Manhattan hospital, shared that she’s earning $120,000 annually as a staff nurse in the night shift. As a faculty member, I take pride in these numbers. Still, I can’t help but feel a touch of unease when money becomes the main narrative. Discussing salary may feel crass, but its relevance to our internal barometers of “making it” is undeniable. Yet it’s impossible to ignore the reality; financial prosperity shapes and sometimes distorts our sense of a life well spent. Although competitive pay is vital to retaining nurses, it doesn’t guarantee a flourishing career or a salubrious life.
Indeed, early results from the Global Flourishing Study, a sweeping 5-year research effort tracking over 200,000 people across 22 countries, suggest a more complex picture; wealth isn’t a reliable predictor of flourishing. In fact, as gross domestic product per capita increased, composite scores of flourishing sometimes declined. Affluent countries such as Sweden reported lower levels of life meaning, weaker social ties, and fewer positive emotions compared to their less wealthy counterparts, such as the Philippines. The countries that scored highest in overall flourishing weren’t the richest, but those with enriched human connection—places with close friendships, enduring marriages, and active community life, often rooted in spiritual or religious engagement. These findings mirror what nurses witness daily: The human capacity to thrive frequently depends less on what we possess, and more on who we are to each other.
Learning to flourish
The healthcare professions are uniquely predisposed to advancing human flourishing, precisely because their practitioners are duty-bound to care for others. I’d like to imagine the classrooms and clinicals as places where students can authentically connect with the spiritual; to learn not only how to care, but why it matters, and for whom. Nurses’ ability to foster flourishing doesn’t begin and end at the bedside; it extends to their advocacy in communities, leadership in policy, and their civic engagement.
The Code asserts that the pursuit of flourishing need not require a perfect system. Goodness and flourishing aren’t utopian ideals; they’re practiced daily by nurses working toward goals aligned with their skills and moral commitments. The ability to care for others, even in imperfect circumstances, is itself an expression of flourishing.
In a world increasingly measured by market value, the Code offers a counternarrative: Human flourishing can’t be bought. It’s cultivated in community, in service, and in purpose. By re-centering human flourishing as an ethical imperative, the Code of Ethics for Nurses becomes more than a professional standard. It provides a moral vision and invites nurses to serve as agents of repair in a broken world, to challenge social and political forces that do harm, and to actively strengthen those that heal. Flourishing may be difficult to define, but in the hands of a nurse, it becomes possible.
Fidelindo Lim, DNP, CCRN, FAAN is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University Meyers College of Nursing.
