NSHEN has developed this educational resource called Featured Article Summary. We will be choosing articles from recent health ethics literature that we think will be of interest to ethics committee members as well as others working in our health care system.
We will create a summary of each article we feature for those too busy to read it in its entirety.
New Summary
Our Next Pandemic Ethics Challenge? – Allocating “Normal” Health Care Services
by Jeremy R. Garrett, Leslie Ann McNolty, Ian D. Wolfe, and John D. Lantos. Hastings Center Report, 2020.
The pandemic creates unprecedented challenges to society and to health care systems around the world. Like all crises, these provide a unique opportunity to rethink the fundamental limiting assumptions and institutional inertia of our established systems. These inertial assumptions have obscured deeply rooted problems in health care and deflected attempts to address them. As hospitals begin to welcome all patients back, they should resist the temptation to go back to business as usual. Instead, they should retain the more deliberative, explicit, and transparent ways of thinking that have informed the development of crisis standards of care. The key lesson to be learned from those exercises in rational deliberation is that justice must be the ethical foundation of all standards of care. Justice demands that hospitals take a safety-net approach to providing services that prioritizes the most vulnerable segments of society, continue to expand telemedicine in ways that improve access without exacerbating disparities, invest in community-based care, and fully staff hospitals and clinics on nights and weekends.
Our Next Pandemics Ethics Challenge Article Summary
Past Summaries
Self-Inflicted Moral Distress: Opportunity for a Fuller Exercise of Professionalism by Jeffrey T. Berger, Ann B. Hamric, and Elizabeth Epstein, (2019), The Journal of Clinical Ethics, Volume 30:4; p.314-317.
(Abstract )
Self-Inflicted Moral Distress – Article Summary
Family-Centered Culture Care: Touched by an Angel by Jesus A Hernandez, (2019), Journal of Clinical Ethics; 30(4):376-383.
(Abstract )
Family Centered Culture Care – Full Artlcle Summary
Tho’ Much is Taken, Much Abides: A Good Life Within Dementia in Nancy Berlinger, Kate de Medeiros, and Mildred Z. Solomin (Edts.) What makes a Good Life in Late Life? Citizenship and Justice in Aging Societies, A Hastings Center Special Report, September-October 2018: S71-S74.
(Abstract )
Tho’ Much is Taken, Much Abides: A Good Life Within Dementia – Full Article Summary
Poverty – Not a Justification for Banning Physician-Assisted Death by Lindsey M. Freeman, Susannah L. Rose, and Stuart J. Youngner, The Hastings Center Report, 2018
Poverty – Not a Justification for Banning Physician-Assisted Death Article Summary
When Societal Structural Issues Become Patient Problems: The Role of Clinical Ethics Consultation by Aimee Milliken, Martha Jurchak, and Nicholas Sadovnikoff, Hastings Center Report, 2018
(Abstract)
When Societal Structural Issues Become Patient Problems-Article Summary
Feeling like a burden to others and the wish to hasten death in patients with advanced illness: A systematic review by Andrea Rodriquez-Prat, Albert Balaguer, Iris Crespo, Christina Monforte-Royo, Bioethics, 2019
(Abstract)
Feeling Like a Burden to Others – Article Summary
Nursing Ethics Huddles to Decrease Moral Distress among Nurses in the Intensive Care Unit? by Marianne C. Chiafery, Patrick Hopkins, Sally A. Norton, and Margie Hodges Shaw, The Journal of Clinical Ethics, 2018
(Abstract)
Nursing Ethics Huddles – Article Summary
Capacity for Preference – Respecting Patients with Compromised Decision-Making by Jason Adam Wasserman and Mark Christopher Navin, The Hastings Center Report, 2018
Capacity for Preference – Article Summary
Narrative Symposium: Doctor in the Family: Stories and Dilemmas Surrounding Illness in Relatives by Joseph J. Fins, Kathleen N.Fenton, Amos Ritter, et al., Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, 2018 (https://muse.jhu.edu/article/690220)
Narrative Symposium: Doctor in the Family: Stories and Dilemmas Surrounding Illness in Relatives
Can Rationing Through Inconvenience be Ethical? by Nir Eyal, Paul L Romain, and Christopher Robertson, Hastings Center Report, 2018
Can Rationing Through Inconvenience be Ethical? – Discussion Page
Workarounds Are Routinely Used by Nurses – But Are They Ethical? by Nancy Berlinger, The American Journal of Nursing, 2017
Workarounds Are Routinely Used by Nurses – But Are They Ethical?
How Long a Life is Enough Life? by D. Callahan & W. Gaylin, Hastings Center Report, 2017
How Long a Life is Enough Life?
Development of a Clinical Ethics Committee de Novo at a Small Community Hospital by Addressing Needs and Potential Barriers by Bonnie H. Arzuaga, The Journal of Clinical Ethics, 2017
Development of a Clinical Ethics Committee de Novo at a Small Community Hospital
After the DNR – Surrogates Who Persists in Requesting Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation by Ellen M. Robinson, Wendy Cadge, Angelika A. Zollfrank, M. Cornelia Crement, and Andrew M. Courtwright, The Hastings Centre Report, 2017
After the DNR – Surrogates Who Persists in Requesting Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
Moral Agency, Moral Imagination, and Moral Community: Antidotes to Moral Distress by Terri Traudt, Joan Liaschenko and Cynthia Peden-McAlpine, The Journal of Clinical Ethics, 2016
Moral Agency Moral Imagination and Moral Community
The Nurse as the Patient’s Advocate: A Contrarian View by Sarah E Shannon, A Hastings Center Special Report, 2016
The Nurse as the Patient’s Advocate: A Contrarian View
Doctor Knows Best? Tubal Litigation in Young, Childless Women. Case study with commentaries by Kathryn Goldrath and Lauren B. Smith, The Hastings Center Report, 2016
Doctor Knows Best? Tubal Litigation in Young, Childless Women
How Can Clinical Ethics Committees Take on Organization Ethics? Some Practical Suggestions by James E Sabin.
How Can Clinical Ethics Committees Take on Organization Ethics? Some Practical Suggestions
Must We Be Courageous? by Ann B Hamric, John D Arras, and Margaret E Mohrmann.
On Not Taking “Yes” for an Answer by Alexander M. Capron.
On Not Taking “Yes” for an Answer
Reframing Conscientious Care. Providing Abortion Care When Law and Conscience Collide. By Mara Buchbinder, Dragana Lassiter, Rebecca Mercier, Amy Bryant, and Anne Drapkin Lyerly.
Reframing Conscientious Care. Providing Abortion Care When Law and Conscience Collide
Let’s not Forget about Clinical Ethics Committees! By Franco A. Carnevale.
Let’s not Forget about Clinical Ethics Committees!
Patient Satisfaction Surveys on a Scale of 0-10: Improving Health Care, or Leading It Astray? By Alexandra Junewicz and Stuart J. Younger.
The Ethics of Physicians’ Web Searches for Patients’ Information by Nicholas Genes and Jacob Appel.
The Ethics of Physicians’ Web Searches