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The mission of Ethics of Caring® is the promotion of ethical dialogue and ethics education for nurses and others in health care. From the start, we valued the bringing together of nurses from multiple healthcare facilities. This encouraged exploration of ethical issues beyond the culture of individual institutions, stimulating the cross fertilization of ideas. The conferences have fostered examination and discussion, supporting those at the frontlines of care as they encountered complex dilemmas. The organization was founded in 1993, and has held an annual conference since 1994, growing to the National Nursing Ethics Conference (NNEC) in 2011.

Originally, with the collaboration and commitment of seventeen healthcare institutions in Los Angeles and Orange County, the symposium was able to provide attendees with exposure to national leaders, clinicians, researchers, and educators in ethics. Members of the Ethics of Caring® who were leaders in nursing and ethics from Los Angeles area healthcare facilities engaged in ethical discourse and peer review and represented nursing on ethics committees and meetings throughout the community.The founding happened when Beverly Fairbairn, RN, CCRN, a nurse on the Ethics Committee at Saint John’s Hospital, proposed the development of a nursing ethics educational program to Katherine Brown-Saltzman, RN, MA, who at the time was the chair of the UCLA Nursing Ethics Committee. Thus began a mutual effort of gathering the network of nursing leaders interested in ethics and broadened immediately into the organization of a community-wide educational effort about nursing ethics. Other founding members were Elissa Brown, RN, MSN, PMHCNS-BC, Linda Gorman, RN, MN, PMHCNS-BC, CHPN, and Marilyn Shirk, MN, RN, CNS-BC. In 2005, with the continued growth of the Ethics of Caring®, the consortium incorporated and became a non-profit organization. (from https://ethicsofcaring.org/history/)