Holy Angel University is a private Catholic research university in Angeles City, Philippines. Founded in June 1933 by Don Juan Nepomuceno and Fr. Pedro Paulo Santos, who was later named as the Archbishop of Cáceres, is considered the first lay-founded Catholic school as well as the first co-educational Catholic high school. With a student population of over 21,000, it is the largest private institute of education with the largest student population in a single campus in Central Luzon..
Background: Truth-telling is widely promoted as a professional and ethical obligation in nursing education and practice. However, in environments lacking psychological safety, speaking up about unethical or harmful practices may result in retaliation rather than reform. Existing literature addresses moral distress, organizational silence, and institutional betrayal, yet offers limited integrative explanations of how these processes unfold over time in educational and clinical settings. Innovation/Major Points: This conceptual paper introduces The Cycle of Retaliatory Silencing, a four-stage cyclical framework describing how truth-telling can devolve into marginalization, narrative reversal, and systemic retaliation. Drawing on theories of psychological safety, moral distress, organizational silence, and institutional betrayal, the model explicates mechanisms such as performative listening and credibility erosion that normalize retaliation while preserving institutional self-image. Implications: The framework offers nursing educators and leaders a lens to recognize early warning signs of retaliatory cultures and to critically examine policies and practices that unintentionally punish integrity. It underscores the need for curricular integration of moral courage, leadership accountability, and structurally protected avenues for voice within nursing education. Conclusions: Sustaining a culture of truth in nursing education requires more than individual bravery; it demands institutional courage. Without intentional safeguards, truth-telling becomes professionally hazardous, undermining integrity, trust, and educational excellence. Addressing retaliatory silencing is essential to fostering psychologically safe learning and practice environments. (c) 2026 Organization for Associate Degree Nursing. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.
Objectives To examine how leadership insecurity triggered by others’ competence influences professional voice, psychological safety, and learning environments in nursing. Design Conceptual literature review integrating organizational silence theory, psychological safety, and authentic and transformational leadership frameworks. Data Sources Peer-reviewed literature from nursing, organizational behavior, and leadership studies addressing competence threat, psychological safety, and organizational silence. Review Methods Theoretical synthesis was used to integrate interdisciplinary scholarship and develop the Competence Threat Loop, a process-oriented framework explaining how perceived competence threat shapes leadership behaviors and organizational culture. Results The review identifies a recurring cycle in which perceived competence threat triggers fear-based control behaviors, suppresses professional voice, and gradually erodes engagement and collective excellence. These dynamics may influence clinical learning climates, mentorship practices, and professional identity formation among nurses and students. Conclusions Reframing competence as a collective organizational resource rather than a leadership threat may help cultivate psychologically safe environments that support collaboration, ethical practice, and
This inquiry is the second phase of a teacher-led initiative that began in 2020 to examine the relationship between student engagement and learning success in the undergraduate classroom. Whereas the initial phase examined engagement and success in the online classroom, this study extends the inquiry to explore engagement and success in the hybrid classroom. Using a convergent mixed methods approach involving 575 students from different cohorts across 6 years, this study finds that there is a significant and positive relationship between student engagement and learning success. Specifically, engagement and active participation serve as a pathway to learning success through opportunities that enable knowledge development, knowledge application, and skill development.
Abstract This Letter to the Editor discusses the study by Liukkonen et al. (2026), which examined how radiation protection apron defects affect radiation dose during fluoroscopy. Although defects smaller than approximately 1 cm did not meaningfully increase air-kerma under the tested conditions, this finding may not apply to all clinical settings. The significance of apron defects may also depend on their location, apron characteristics, exposure conditions, and clinical use. Therefore, a broader assessment beyond defect size alone may support more appropriate and evidence-based apron inspection and acceptance practices.
