The FCPC has signed an agreement with the ACPA to License the Professional Ethics for Chemists course
The FCPC has signed a license agreement with the Association of the Chemical Profession of Alberta (ACPA) that will make the virtual Professional Ethics for Chemists course a standard for professional chemists across Canada, facilitating Labour Mobility, and will compliment the existing equivalent French course offered by the OCQ in Quebec.
The course will introduce the ethical framework that guides professional chemists in the conduct of their duties and focuses on solving practical issues that arise in professional practice. The Ethics course is a mandatory requirement for ACPA P.Chem members and will become mandatory for professional chemists in other provinces in the future.
The Ethics course consists of seven modules and covers topics such as Competence and Scope of Practice, Professional Conduct and Ethics, Professional Behaviour, The Criticality of Trust, Integrity and Value Systems, Managing Conflicts and Making Decisions. Much of the course consists of reading and self-study, including online discussions with other course participants. The course also includes two Zoom sessions where students participate in live group discussions and case studies. The on-line / synchronous nature of this Ethics course helps bring chemists together from across the country and the world, making it an enriching experience for participants. The course concludes with an exam which consists of a case study analysis and candidates that pass the exam receive an Ethics certificate. Active participation in on-line discussions and Zoom sessions is mandatory to pass the course.
The course was developed by the ACPA, primarily by Nils Petersen, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, and Kathy Janzen, who was Executive Director of the ACPA for a decade. Nils and Kathy taught this course in person for many years and refined the content over that period. Then when Covid made classroom courses impossible, they enlisted the help of Stephen Urquhart, Chemistry Professor, University of Saskatchewan, and member of ACPS, to convert the course to an online version.
An instructor training program has also been developed so that consistency in teaching the course can be preserved. A national Ethics committee will be struck by the FCPC to take over management of the course development, although the ACPA will retain copyright of the Ethics course for the duration of the agreement.