Hec ForumPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2022-12-15DOI: 10.1007/s10730-022-09502-x
David C Scott
{"title":"Democratizing Conscientious Refusal in Healthcare.","authors":"David C Scott","doi":"10.1007/s10730-022-09502-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10730-022-09502-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Settling the debate over conscientious refusal (CR) in liberal democracies requires us to develop a conception of the healthcare provider's moral role. Because CR claims and resulting policy changes take place in specific sociopolitical contexts with unique histories and diverse polities, the method we use for deriving the healthcare norms should itself be a democratic, context-dependent inquiry. To this end, I begin by describing some prerequisites-which I call publicity conditions-for any democratic account of healthcare norms that conflict or jibe with CR. Next, drawing on Ronald Dworkin's jurisprudence and Tom Beauchamp & James Childress's approach to bioethical reasoning, I briefly introduce one method for generating healthcare norms that is faithful to the publicity conditions and has potential to constructively, and democratically, derive important boundaries for CR. Finally, I argue that many critics of CR fail to similarly ground their accounts of healthcare norms in healthcare professionals' sociopolitical contexts, often relying instead on their own interpretation of a generally stateable healthcare norm. This leads to their misconstruing both the value judgments on which their own approaches rest and the public, political values that are often invoked in favor of CR.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":" ","pages":"259-289"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9753870/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10356500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2022-12-22DOI: 10.1007/s10730-022-09501-y
Joel M Geiderman, John C Moskop, Catherine A Marco, Raquel M Schears, Arthur R Derse
{"title":"Civility in Health Care: A Moral Imperative.","authors":"Joel M Geiderman, John C Moskop, Catherine A Marco, Raquel M Schears, Arthur R Derse","doi":"10.1007/s10730-022-09501-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10730-022-09501-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Civility is an essential feature of health care, as it is in so many other areas of human interaction. The article examines the meaning of civility, reviews its origins, and provides reasons for its moral significance in health care. It describes common types of uncivil behavior by health care professionals, patients, and visitors in hospitals and other health care settings, and it suggests strategies to prevent and respond to uncivil behavior, including institutional codes of conduct and disciplinary procedures. The article concludes that uncivil behavior toward health care professionals, patients, and others subverts the moral goals of health care and is therefore unacceptable. Civility is a basic professional duty that health care professionals should embrace, model, and teach.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":" ","pages":"245-257"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11070391/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10475268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2024-06-01Epub Date: 2023-01-07DOI: 10.1007/s10730-022-09503-w
Sayyed Mohamed Muhsin
{"title":"Islamic Jurisprudence on Harm Versus Harm Scenarios in Medical Confidentiality.","authors":"Sayyed Mohamed Muhsin","doi":"10.1007/s10730-022-09503-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10730-022-09503-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although medical confidentiality is widely recognized as an essential principle in the therapeutic relationship, its systematic and coherent practice has been an ethically challenging duty upon healthcare providers due to various concerns of clinical, moral, religious, social, ethical and legal natures. Medical confidentiality can be breached to protect the patient and/or others if maintaining confidentiality causes serious harm. Healthcare professionals may encounter complicated situations whereby the divulgence of a patient's confidential information may pose a threat to one party whereas the concealment of such information may cause harm to another. After deliberating on the Islamic concept of harm (ḍarar), this paper focuses on the dual duty and conflicts of interests faced by healthcare professionals in the practice of medical confidentiality. Referring to serious infectious diseases with a special mention of AIDS, this study also provides discourse on how healthcare professionals deal with difficult scenarios of conflicts of interests and ethical dilemmas.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":" ","pages":"291-316"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9825058/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10508103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2024-05-31DOI: 10.1007/s10730-024-09532-7
Kelly Turner, Abram Brummett, Erica Salter
{"title":"On What Grounds? A Pilot Study of References Used in Clinical Ethics Consultation and Education.","authors":"Kelly Turner, Abram Brummett, Erica Salter","doi":"10.1007/s10730-024-09532-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-024-09532-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In accordance with standards published by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH), ethics consultants are expected to provide recommendations that align with scholarly literature, professional society statements, law, and policy. However, there are no studies to date that characterize the specific references that ethics consultants and educators use to inform their work. To address this gap, a convenience sample of clinical ethics consultants and educators was surveyed online through two major listservs for clinical ethics, the ASBH Clinical Ethics Consultation Affinity Group (CECAG) and the Association of Bioethics Program Directors (ABPD). Ninety-five ethics consultants and/or educators with diverse educational background, credentials, and experience provided responses. In total, 451 references, 315 of which were unique, were reported. These references were broken into 6 categories after analysis: bioethics literature (divided into articles and books), professional society documents (divided into professional society statements and codes of ethics), federal/state/uniform/case law, hospital/health system policies, official religious teachings, and other. We found extensive variation and minimal overlap in the references respondents used for ethics consultation and education, even when referring to the same topics. Future research directions should include conducting more systematic efforts to characterize the references used by ethics consultants across the US; determining whether demographic characteristics of consultants influence the references used; and ascertaining whether the variation in references used reflects genuine disagreements in consultants' and educators' bioethical analysis or recommendations.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141179463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2024-05-14DOI: 10.1007/s10730-024-09531-8
William Simkulet
{"title":"Against Anti-Abortion Violence.","authors":"William Simkulet","doi":"10.1007/s10730-024-09531-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-024-09531-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Jeremy Williams argues that both anti-abortion and pro-choice theories seem to justify two forms of anti-abortion violence - (1) violence against those that perform abortions, and (2) the subjugation of women seeking abortion. He illustrates this by way of his Death Camps analogy. However, Williams does not advocate such violence; rather he seems despondent over his conclusion. Here I argue Williams' conclusion turns on confusion regarding the restrictivist position and a failure to adequately meet the challenge of Thomson's Violinist case. The Death Camps analogy is incomparable to the practice of abortion because it fails to capture the risks, burdens, and rights relationships present in pregnancy.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140920902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2024-04-26DOI: 10.1007/s10730-024-09526-5
Mariah K. Tanious, Grant Goodrich, Virginia Pedigo, Shelly Ozark, Joshua Arenth
{"title":"Prognostic Disclosure to Dying Adolescents Against Parental Wishes: A Point-Counter Point Debate","authors":"Mariah K. Tanious, Grant Goodrich, Virginia Pedigo, Shelly Ozark, Joshua Arenth","doi":"10.1007/s10730-024-09526-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-024-09526-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>An adolescent’s last moment of life is an emotionally and medically complex time. Children may grapple with understanding the things happening to them and with grief of a future lost; caregivers struggle to simultaneously balance deep sorrow, hope, and love; and healthcare providers fight to maintain sound medical and ethical decision making. Increased discussion regarding adolescent end-of-life care is needed so that clinicians may better understand how to engage in ethically based medical management during these events. This holds particularly true in situations where potentially conflicting ideas exist between clinicians and family members. We describe the case of an acutely and terminally ill adolescent who remained cognitively intact but with rapidly advancing multiple organ failure and whose parents requested that he remain uninformed of his critical illness and prognosis.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140802616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2024-04-23DOI: 10.1007/s10730-024-09527-4
Claudia R. Sotomayor, Christopher Spevak, Edward R. Grant
{"title":"Professionalization of Clinical Ethics Consultants: A Need for Liability Protection?","authors":"Claudia R. Sotomayor, Christopher Spevak, Edward R. Grant","doi":"10.1007/s10730-024-09527-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-024-09527-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Clinical Ethics Consultation (CEC) has grown significantly in the last decade, and efforts are being made to professionalize the practice. The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has been instrumental in this process, having published the <i>Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibilities for Healthcare Ethics Consultants</i> and founded and endorsed the creation of the <i>Healthcare Ethics Consultant Certified (HCEC) Certification Commission.</i> The ASBH also published “core competencies” for healthcare ethics consultants and has delineated a clear identity and role of such consultants distinct from that other healthcare professionals. In addition, more enter the field armed with advanced degrees (MA and PhD) or certification in clinical ethics consultation. While some have questioned the trend toward professionalization, the momentum is clearly in its favor. This paper explores three questions: Does the professionalization of healthcare ethics consultation expose those engaged in the field to the types of liability claims faced by professionals in other fields? What specific liabilities could affect a healthcare ethics consultant? And finally, what should healthcare ethics consultants do to protect themselves against liability claims? We conclude that while the risk of liability remains low, those engaged in the field should accept that risk just as part of their status as professionals and, like those in allied professions, seek appropriate protection in the form of liability insurance.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140802499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2024-03-20DOI: 10.1007/s10730-024-09525-6
{"title":"Ritual and Power in Medicine: Questioning Honor Walks in Organ Donation","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s10730-024-09525-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-024-09525-6","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>Honor walks are ceremonies that purportedly honor organ donors as they make their final journey from the ICU to the OR. In this paper, we draw on Ronald Grimes’ work in ritual studies to examine honor walks as ceremonial rituals that display medico-technological power in a symbolic social drama (Grimes, <span>1982</span>). We argue that while honor walks claim to honor organ donors, ceremonies cannot primarily honor donors, but can only honor donation itself. Honor walks promote the quasi-religious idea of donation as a “good death,” and mask the ambiguity and discomfort inherent in organ donation to promote greater acceptance by the medical community. While some goods may be achieved through honor walks, particularly for donor families, it is still important to examine the negative work done by this practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140172438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Suppressing Scientific Discourse on Vaccines? Self-perceptions of researchers and practitioners.","authors":"Ety Elisha, Josh Guetzkow, Yaffa Shir-Raz, Natti Ronel","doi":"10.1007/s10730-022-09479-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10730-022-09479-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The controversy over vaccines has recently intensified in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, with calls from politicians, health professionals, journalists, and citizens to take harsh measures against so-called \"anti-vaxxers,\" while accusing them of spreading \"fake news\" and as such, of endangering public health. However, the issue of suppression of vaccine dissenters has rarely been studied from the point of view of those who raise concerns about vaccine safety. The purpose of the present study was to examine the subjective perceptions of professionals (physicians, nurses, researchers) involved with vaccines through practice and/or research and who take a critical view on vaccines, about what they perceive as the suppression of dissent in the field of vaccines, their response to it, and its potential implications on science and medicine. Respondents reported being subjected to a variety of censorship and suppression tactics, including the retraction of papers pointing to vaccine safety problems, negative publicity, difficulty in obtaining research funding, calls for dismissal, summonses to official hearings, suspension of medical licenses, and self-censorship. Respondents also reported on what has been termed a \"backfire effect\" - a counter-reaction that draws more attention to the opponents' position. Suppression of dissent impairs scientific discourse and research practice while creating the false impression of scientific consensus.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"1 1","pages":"71-89"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9117988/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47995084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hec ForumPub Date : 2023-12-21DOI: 10.1007/s10730-023-09516-z
{"title":"Clinical Ethics and Professional Integrity: A Comment on the ASBH Code","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s10730-023-09516-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-023-09516-z","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p><em>The Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibilities for Healthcare Ethics Consultants</em> instructs clinical ethics consultants to preserve their professional integrity by “not engaging in activities that involve giving an ethical justification or stamp of approval to practices they believe are inconsistent with agreed-upon standards” (ASBH, <span>2014</span>, p. 2). This instruction reflects a larger model of how to address value uncertainty and moral conflict in healthcare, and it brings up some intriguing and as yet unanswered questions—ones that the drafters of the <em>Code</em>, and the profession more broadly, should seek to address in upcoming revisions. The objective of this article is to raise these questions as a way of urging greater clarification of the <em>Code’s</em> overall approach to professional integrity, its meaning, and implications.</p>","PeriodicalId":46160,"journal":{"name":"Hec Forum","volume":"73 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138825491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}