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Results for “Ethicists”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

A study of the foundations of ethical decision making of clinical medical ethicists.

A study of clinical medical ethicists was conducted to determine the various philosophical positions they hold with respect to ethical decision making in medicine and their various positions' relationship to the subjective-objective controversy in value theory. The study consisted of analyzing and interpreting data gathered from questionnaires from 52 clinical medical ethicists at 28 major health care centers in the United States. The study revealed that most clinical medical ethicists tend to be objectivists in value theory, i.e., believe that value judgments are knowledge claims capable of being true or false and therefore expressions of moral requirements and normative imperatives emanating from an external value structure or moral order in the world. In addition, the study revealed that most clinical medical ethicists are consistent in the philosophical foundations of their ethical decision making, i.e., in decision making regarding values they tend not to hold beliefs which are incompatible with other beliefs they hold about values.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

The problem of the impaired clinical ethicist.

Because clinical ethicists wield considerable power and influence in matters affecting institutions, clinicians, and patients, they should be accountable to those who employ them, rely on them, or are affected by their judgment. At a minimum, clinical ethicists have a duty not to be impaired, and the doctrine of corporate liability obliges institutions to ensure that neither they nor their patients are exposed to the risks the impaired clinical ethicist creates. Although their roles are still evolving and professional standards have yet to be established, a close look at what clinical ethicists do and what they say they do suggests the forms impairment may take and what the health community might do about it.

Decision Making↗
PubMed1992

Which opinion should a clinical ethicist give: personal viewpoint or professional consensus?

When clinical ethicists are called upon to give a recommendation regarding patient care, they may be faced with a dilemma of their own. If their own personal opinion is not widely shared, the ethicist will have three options. These include: (1) giving their own opinion; (2) giving the widely shared opinion; and (3) giving both opinions, leaving the physician to select which opinion to accept. The intentions of this article are to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of these three alternatives and to suggest that ethics consultants recognize and deal with this issue. Two cases are presented to explore the limitations of each option. The author suggests that when the views of ethics consultants differ from the consensus view, the consultant should give the consensus view, their own dissenting view and the arguments in support of each position.

Codes of Ethics↗
PubMed1992

Baby marrow: ethicists and privacy.

A family had a child in large part to use its marrow in the hopes of saving the life of an older child afflicted with leukaemia. Public response from medical ethicists was negative. This paper argues that what the family did was not clearly wrong and that the ethicists should not have made public pronouncements calling the morals of the family into question.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Attitudes on the ethics of abortion, sex selection, and selective pregnancy termination among health care professionals, ethicists, and clergy likely to encounter such situations.

The ethical attitudes of health care providers toward abortion, sex selection, and selective termination of normal and anomalous fetuses in singleton or multiple pregnancies were evaluated by questionnaires distributed to members of the American Society of Human Genetics, the International Fetal Medicine and Surgery Society, the Society of Perinatal Obstetricians, ethicists, and clergy. Demographic characteristics of respondents exhibited a preponderance of men (76%), age greater than 40 (68%), and of United States residents (82%). Seventy-nine percent of respondents were in the medical profession. Approximately half of the respondents were Protestant, the rest being evenly distributed among Catholic, Jewish, and other religions. Acceptance of abortion for social indication varied by religion and gestational age but not by religious conviction, age, country, or gender of respondent. First-trimester abortion of a normal singleton pregnancy was considered more acceptable than selective termination of normal fetuses in multifetal gestations. Sex selection was considered unethical by most respondents. Selective termination was deemed ethically appropriate in quadruplets or multifetal gestations of more than five fetuses and in multiple pregnancies bearing one anomalous fetus. In the latter situation, acceptance increased with the severity of fetal anomalies and decreased from the first to the third trimester. The medical specialty of respondents was the only independent factor strongly associated with acceptance of selective termination by trimester, indication, and number of fetuses. Acceptance of selective termination among health care professionals appears to reflect not only perceptions of procedure-related risks and benefits in the index pregnancy but also individual training and religious beliefs.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed1992

Reflections of a reluctant clinical ethicist: ethics consultation and the collapse of critical distance.

The obvious appeal and growing momentum of clinical ethics in academic medical centers should not blind us to a potential danger: the collapse of critical distance. The very integration into the clinical milieu and the processes of clinical decision making, that clinical ethics claims as its greatest success, carries the seeds of a dilution of ethics' critical stance toward medicine and medical education. The purpose of this paper is to suggest how this might occur, and what potential contributions of ethics to medicine might be sacrificed as a result. Medical sociology will be used for comparison. Sociologists have found that they may function either as students and critics of established medical practices and educational philosophies, or as collaborative participants in them--but rarely both. It may be that professional ethics is most effective when it plays the role of 'stranger' rather than insider, and is continually able to question the most basic assumptions and values of the enterprise with which it is associated. As with medical sociology, ethics and humanities must ask to what extent their desire for acceptance in the clinic requires their acceptance of the clinic: specifically, acceptance of basic assumptions about optimal ways of organizing medical education, socializing physicians-in-training, providing care, and even of defining medical ethics itself. The paper concludes by recommending that ethics reassert its 'strangeness' in the medical milieu even as it assumes a more prominent role within the medical center.

Clinical Medicine↗
PubMed1991

The clinical ethicist at the bedside.

In this paper we attempt to show how the goal of resolving moral problems in a patient's care can best be achieved by working at the bedside. We present and discuss three cases to illustrate the art and science of clinical ethics consultation. The sine qua non of the clinical ethics consultant is that he or she goes to the patient's bedside to obtain specific clinical and ethical information. Unlike ethics committees, which often depend on second hand information from a physician or nurse, clinical ethics consultants personally speak with and examine patients and review their laboratory data and medical records. The skills of the clinical ethics consultant include the ability to delineate and resolve ethical problems in a particular patient's case and to teach other health professionals to build their own frameworks for clinical ethical decision making. When the clinical situation requires it, clinical ethics consultants can and should assist primary physicians with case management.

Adult↗