Are Clinical Ethics Religiously and Culturally Competent?
Lynn Stoller, MA, Intercultural Relations, Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding
The field of clinical ethics is supposed to help doctors, nurses, and other medical professions figure out what is right and wrong when treating patients. However, the ethical principles and standards of care often used in these deliberations may themselves be insufficiently inclusive by failing to take into account the ethical beliefs of various religious traditions. As a result, clinical ethics may be a barrier that prevents patients from receiving care that is appropriate to their religious beliefs and practices. Examples include the concept of brain death, which ignores the ways in which many Jews define death; attitudes towards pain management, which may not address religion-based beliefs about pain; and the notion of faith healing, which raises questions about how much respect to give a patient’s autonomous decision when it is based on religious rather than scientific beliefs, as well as the extent to which being a member of a particular religious and cultural community inhibits an individuals’ ability to make autonomous medical decisions. In all of these cases, a religious patient’s attitude towards health, well-being, or even personhood conflicts with the scientific standards of care that underlie contemporary medicine, as well as contemporary clinical ethics.
This workshop will provide an overview of America’s religious demographics and areas where religion and health care commonly intersect. It will then present a series of case studies in which the patient’s religious beliefs or practices conflict with an ethical principle or standard of ethical care. Participants will be guided through a discussion of these cases and asked to consider how best to resolve such conflicts. The workshop will also explore the role of health care providers’ own personal and professional ethics and how these affect attitudes towards patients’ religious ethics. The workshop will conclude with practical recommendations for making ethical frameworks more inclusive of patients’ religious beliefs and practices as they relate to health and wellbeing.
Participants will have the opportunity to identify when religious beliefs and practices that may conflict with established principles of bioethics, as well as establish strategies to resolve conflicts between religious beliefs and practices and ethical principles that will help improve patient care.
The first 15 minutes will consist of a didactic presentation of religious trends and demographics, the areas where religion and health care commonly intersect, and how religion may conflict with principles within clinical ethics.
During the next 50 minutes, the facilitators will present two cases studies in which a patient’s religious beliefs of practices conflicted with a standard of ethical care, and then facilitate a discussion on the extent to which health care providers should include their patients’ religious beliefs as a component of ethical clinical care. This conversation will also include an exploration of how health care providers’ personal and professional ethics affect their attitudes towards their patients’ religious ethics. This portion of the workshop will conclude with practical recommendations for making ethical frameworks more inclusive of patients’ religious beliefs and practices.
The final 10 minutes of the workshop will be left for questions.
The field of clinical ethics is supposed to help doctors, nurses, and other medical professions figure out what is right and wrong when treating patients. However, the ethical principles and standards of care often used in these deliberations may themselves be insufficiently inclusive by failing to take into account the ethical beliefs of various religious traditions. As a result, clinical ethics may be a barrier that prevents patients from receiving care that is appropriate to their religious beliefs and practices. Examples include the concept of brain death, which ignores the ways in which many Jews define death; attitudes towards pain management, which may not address religion-based beliefs about pain; and the notion of faith healing, which raises questions about how much respect to give a patient’s autonomous decision when it is based on religious rather than scientific beliefs, as well as the extent to which being a member of a particular religious and cultural community inhibits an individuals’ ability to make autonomous medical decisions. In all of these cases, a religious patient’s attitude towards health, well-being, or even personhood conflicts with the scientific standards of care that underlie contemporary medicine, as well as contemporary clinical ethics.
This workshop will provide an overview of America’s religious demographics and areas where religion and health care commonly intersect. It will then present a series of case studies in which the patient’s religious beliefs or practices conflict with an ethical principle or standard of ethical care. Participants will be guided through a discussion of these cases and asked to consider how best to resolve such conflicts. The workshop will also explore the role of health care providers’ own personal and professional ethics and how these affect attitudes towards patients’ religious ethics. The workshop will conclude with practical recommendations for making ethical frameworks more inclusive of patients’ religious beliefs and practices as they relate to health and wellbeing.
Participants will have the opportunity to identify when religious beliefs and practices that may conflict with established principles of bioethics, as well as establish strategies to resolve conflicts between religious beliefs and practices and ethical principles that will help improve patient care.
The first 15 minutes will consist of a didactic presentation of religious trends and demographics, the areas where religion and health care commonly intersect, and how religion may conflict with principles within clinical ethics.
During the next 50 minutes, the facilitators will present two cases studies in which a patient’s religious beliefs of practices conflicted with a standard of ethical care, and then facilitate a discussion on the extent to which health care providers should include their patients’ religious beliefs as a component of ethical clinical care. This conversation will also include an exploration of how health care providers’ personal and professional ethics affect their attitudes towards their patients’ religious ethics. This portion of the workshop will conclude with practical recommendations for making ethical frameworks more inclusive of patients’ religious beliefs and practices.
The final 10 minutes of the workshop will be left for questions.