Thorny Issues in Clinical Ethics Consultation (eBook)

This book addresses new and evolving thorny issues in clinical ethics consultation. It is a book for our time. The contributors provide essential critical reflection on the standards and methods of training clinical ethics consultants as the field seeks to professionalize.  This collection incorporates both North American and European experts, offering different perspectives on issues such as marginalized populations, the opioid epidemic, complex discharge, micro-managing families, and continually challenging issues at the end-of-life, such as determinations of brain death, physician-assisted death, and futility. The authors engage the complexities of choosing for others when making decisions for incapacitated adults and pediatric patients. This volume engages with the growing literature in these debates and offers new perspectives from both academics and practitioners. The readings are of particular interest to bioethicists, clinicians, ethics committees, and students in bioethics and beyond. These new essays advance discussions in the professionalization and certification of ethics consultants and offer crucial insights on new and evolving thorny issues in the practice of clinical ethics consultation.

Mark G. Kuczewski, PhD, HEC-C, is the Fr. Michael I. English, S.J., Professor of Medical Ethics. He is also the director of the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Healthcare Leadership at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Mark is a past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). He has been engaged in bedside clinical ethics issues for more than 25 years and much of that experience forms the basis for the popular text, An Ethics Casebook for Hospitals: Practical Approaches to Everyday Ethics Consultations (2nd edition, Georgetown University Press). For the last decade, he has been an articulate spokesperson for the just and equitable treatment of immigrant patients.

Katherine Wasson, PhD, MPH, HEC-C, is an Associate Professor in The Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Healthcare Leadership at the Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago where she is the Director of the Bioethics and Professionalism Honors Program.  For over 20 years Dr. Wasson has been a clinical ethics consultant and educator, including in both the United States and United Kingdom, teaching a wide range of students and healthcare professionals.  She was one of the first Fellows in The Ethics of Prevention and Public Health at The National Cancer Institute and served on the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs Committee and the Board of Directors.  She is the project lead for the Assessing Clinical Ethics Skills (ACES) Tool for training and evaluating clinical ethics consultants and the corresponding research studies.