3.4 Good Professional Character, Ethical Conduct & Criminal Conduct

Good Professional Character, Ethical Conduct & Criminal Conduct

Why this is on the NJE: Ethics is one of the five official subject areas, and the Resource List gives it five rows: Good Professional Character (Rule 213.27(a), Rule 217.12, NPA §301.452(b)), Ethical Conduct (Rules 213.27, 213.28, 213.29, 213.30 and 217.12), Criminal Conduct (NPA §301.4535, Rule 213.28), Boundary Violations, and Unprofessional Conduct. Sections 3.1 to 3.3 cover boundaries, autonomy, and ethical reasoning. This section covers the rules that make character itself a legal requirement.

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Good Professional Character Is a Continuing Requirement

22 TAC §213.27 is the rule candidates most often misunderstand. Good professional character is not a box ticked at licensure and forgotten. It is defined as the integrated pattern of personal, academic and occupational behaviours which, in the Board's judgement, indicates that an individual is able to consistently conform their conduct to the requirements of the NPA, Board rules, and generally accepted standards of nursing practice.

Three features make it powerful:

1. It is affirmative. The applicant or licensee bears the burden of demonstrating it. The Board does not have to prove bad character; the nurse has to establish good character where a question arises.
2. It is continuing. It applies at initial licensure, at endorsement, at renewal, at reinstatement — and at any point the Board has reason to examine it.
3. It is a pattern, not an incident. The rule speaks of an integrated pattern of behaviour. This cuts both ways: an isolated lapse in a long record of good conduct is weighed differently from a series of events, and rehabilitation evidence matters.

[!NOTE] This is why the Declaratory Order process exists (Section 1.2). A prospective applicant with a history that raises a character question can have the Board rule on eligibility before investing in nursing school, precisely because character is a licensure condition rather than a disciplinary afterthought.

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The Four Character-and-Conduct Rules

These sit alongside 22 TAC §217.12, Unprofessional Conduct (Section 5.1), and NPA §301.452(b), which lists the statutory grounds for disciplinary action (Section 5.4). Rules 213.27 to 213.30 answer who may hold a licence; §217.12 answers what conduct breaches it. The Resource List places both under Ethics because in practice they run together.

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Criminal Conduct: What Texas Actually Asks

NPA §301.4535 and 22 TAC §213.28 govern criminal history. The Board publishes Disciplinary Sanction Policies with a dedicated guidelines section for criminal conduct.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|          HOW THE BOARD APPROACHES CRIMINAL HISTORY                  |
|                                                                     |
|  IT IS NOT a simple "felony = denial" rule.                         |
|                                                                     |
|  The Board weighs, among other things:                              |
|    - the nature and seriousness of the offence                      |
|    - its relationship to the duties and responsibilities of nursing |
|    - how much time has passed and the applicant's age at the time   |
|    - conduct and work history before and since                      |
|    - evidence of rehabilitation                                     |
|    - COMPLETE AND TRUTHFUL DISCLOSURE                               |
|                                                                     |
|  CERTAIN OFFENCES receive specific statutory treatment under        |
|  NPA 301.4535, reflecting the Legislature's judgment that some      |
|  conduct is fundamentally incompatible with nursing.                |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

The Disclosure Trap

The most consequential mistake is not the offence — it is the answer to the question about the offence.

• Deferred adjudication counts. As Section 1.2 explains, an applicant who successfully completed deferred adjudication and has no conviction on their record must still disclose it. The Board treats it as reportable history.
• Expunged or sealed records should be addressed with the Board rather than silently omitted.
• Non-disclosure is independently actionable. Failing to disclose is fraudulent concealment. A nurse can survive the underlying offence and lose the licence over the concealment, because concealment speaks directly to the character question the Board is asking.

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Character Reaches Beyond the Bedside

Because good professional character concerns an integrated pattern of personal, academic and occupational behaviours, Board action can follow conduct with no clinical dimension whatsoever:

Section 2.4 makes the same point from the practice side: off-duty conduct is within the Board's reach. This section explains why — the licence is conditioned on character, and character does not clock out at the end of a shift.

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Ethical Conduct as an Enforceable Standard

An important distinction for the exam: the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses is a professional document produced by a voluntary association (Section 1.6). It is influential and the Board's expectations align with it, but the enforceable Texas obligations are the ones written into Rules 213.27 to 213.30 and §217.12.

So when an item asks "what is the nurse's obligation," look for the Texas rule. When an item asks "what ethical principle is illustrated," the answer may properly be autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, or justice (Section 3.3) — but the enforcement hook is always a Board rule or an NPA section.

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Realistic Scenario & Legal Analysis

Scenario

Bianca is an experienced RN in good standing. Six years ago, before nursing school, she received deferred adjudication for a misdemeanour theft charge, completed community supervision, and had the case dismissed without conviction. On her original Texas application she answered "no" to the criminal history question, reasoning that there was no conviction. She has practised without incident since. During a routine renewal audit, the Board's background check surfaces the deferred adjudication.

Legal Analysis

1. The underlying offence is survivable. A six-year-old misdemeanour theft with completed supervision, no repeat conduct, and a clean practice record is exactly the fact pattern 22 TAC §213.28 and the Disciplinary Sanction Policies are designed to weigh contextually. Remoteness, rehabilitation, and subsequent work history all favour Bianca.
2. The non-disclosure is the serious problem. Deferred adjudication is reportable regardless of the absence of a conviction. Answering "no" is fraudulent concealment, which is a direct good professional character finding under §213.27 and unprofessional conduct under §217.12.
3. Why concealment weighs so heavily. The Board's inquiry under §213.27 is whether the individual will consistently conform their conduct to the NPA and Board rules. A false answer on a licensure application is evidence bearing on precisely that question — which is why nurses regularly receive harsher outcomes for the concealment than the original offence would have produced.
4. Bianca's best course now is full, immediate, voluntary disclosure with supporting documentation — court records, evidence of rehabilitation, employment references — and cooperation with the investigation. Failing to cooperate would add a violation of §217.12(10) on top of everything else (Section 5.5).
5. The lesson for candidates: the Declaratory Order under §213.30 existed for Bianca before she enrolled. Using it converts an eligibility risk into a resolved question, at no cost to the underlying career.