Her work focuses on the ethics of pharmaceutical industry omnipresence in healthcare research and practice. Her area of inquiry is among the most pressing of the social, political, economic, scientific and ethical challenges facing the sustainability of health care systems around the world. Dr Springer’s published works in this area problematise the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the profession of nursing and are intended to raise awareness amongst nurses about the magnitude of the purview of the pharmaceutical industry and its insidious ‘creep’ into nursing’s intimate relational spaces.