"The Clinician Who Acts as Others Believe: Prioritizing the Patient's Spiritual Viewpoint in Spiritually Diverse Communities of Practice"
Joel Warden, PhD, The Brooklyn Hospital Center
The ethical framework guiding clinical interventions in contemporary western medicine is organized around the four principles of Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Autonomy and Justice. These principles have proven individually and in relation to one another to be rich guides for moral deliberation in ethically diverse communities because they each can be explained, justified and deployed by agents who possess varied fundamental moral, spiritual, and religious commitments.
Clinicians, whether they are personally observant of a spiritual tradition or not, are required to treat patients guided by their patient's’ moral viewpoints, not their own. This means that clinicians are asked to bracket (and thus set aside) personal theologically charged views while at the same time foregrounding the views of their patients.
This paper explores the complexity of this position and suggests that a retrieval of virtue-centered models of medical practice, mediated especially by the virtue of compassion, can help practitioners navigate the challenges of practicing medicine in a religiously diverse community.
Clinicians, whether they are personally observant of a spiritual tradition or not, are required to treat patients guided by their patient's’ moral viewpoints, not their own. This means that clinicians are asked to bracket (and thus set aside) personal theologically charged views while at the same time foregrounding the views of their patients.
This paper explores the complexity of this position and suggests that a retrieval of virtue-centered models of medical practice, mediated especially by the virtue of compassion, can help practitioners navigate the challenges of practicing medicine in a religiously diverse community.