ABOUT US
RESOURCES
CONTACT US
Archives
Categories
Blogs
Links
META
Center Hosts First Public Event
October 9th, 2008
On October 4, 2008, the Center for Ethics and Leadership in the Health Professions hosted its first public event as part of a weekend gathering of the affiliate faculty from the Department of Health Care Ethics. Approximately 100 students, faculty and community members gathered for a morning conference entitled "Personal Accountability and Health Care Reform." Learn more…ethics-conference
Ethics at the End of Life
October 6th, 2008
Ethics: The Fourth Dimension of Care at the End of Life
A preconference seminar from the Colorado Center for Hospice & Palliative Care
October 29, 2008, 1:00-4:00 PM, Beaver Run Resort, Breckenridge
This interactive seminar will provide an intensive introduction to ethical principles and consultation techniques based in actual case studies for health care and social service professionals and volunteers serving persons at the end of life. Awareness of the ethical dimension of care — along with the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual — is increasingly essential not only for quality care but to protect staff from moral distress leading to fatigue and even burnout. Ethics committee formation, education, and activity will also be addressed. Participants will be equipped with practical tools to implement right away in settings of any size or level of ethics activity. To register and for more information on this seminar and the full conference, visit www.cochpc.org/conferences.
NICU Ethics Lecture
September 17th, 2008
“After Bad News – Then What?”
Exploring complex medical choices with patients and families
Presented by: Peter Hulac, MD
Peter Hulac is a Neonatologist on the faculty of the CU School of Medicine, is the President of the Colorado HealthCare Ethics Forum, and is Medical Director of the Colorado Fetal Concerns Program.
Dinner Lecture:
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
6 to 9 p.m.
Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital
Russell Pavilion
1835 Franklin St., Denver, CO 80218
CNE’s will be awarded, and CERP’s(E) applied for.
“The Kaiser Permanente Nursing Education Department is an approved provider of continuing nursing education by the Colorado Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.”
For questions, call 303-636-3023
Nanontechnology–Panel Discussion
September 16th, 2008
Nanotechnology: It’s Not Your Father’s Science
We’ve heard in the news about advancements made possible by nanotechnology but to most the technology remains an enigmatic concept, especially in the context of how it affects our daily lives. These panelists will share nanotechnology basics and examples of how emerging technologies are being used in a wide variety of applications in health care, the energy industry, and space science. These experts will also explore nanotechnology on a deeper level. While new technologies offer much, they carry uncertainty. Nanotechnology can be used to make more-efficient solar cells, lighter spacecraft, cancer treatments, and even “odor-eating” socks. Some say the benefits outweigh possible risks, but others aren’t so sure. Come listen to the experts and get answers to your questions before you decide what you think. This free program is sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Panelists:
- Debra Bennett-Woods, EdD, chair and associate professor, Department of Health Care Ethics, and director, Center for Ethics and Leadership in the Health Professions, Regis University
- Ellen R. Fisher, PhD, professor of chemistry, Colorado State University
- Suraj Rawal, senior manager of Advanced Material and Structures, R&T Group, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company
Moderated by Bridget Coughlin, PhD, deputy chief curator
Tuesday, September 16
7:00 p.m.
Phipps IMAX Theater; use IMAX Evening Entrance
FREE; to reserve a seat call 303.322.7009
For more information, follow this link:
http://www.dmns.org/main/en/General/Education/AdultProgram/Lectures/Programs/Nanotechnology.htm
Organ Donation After Cardiac Death Debate Continues
September 3rd, 2008
Denver Post article interviews Dr. Tom Hooyman – http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10358230
Ethicists look to M.D.s on “death”
Yet theologians strive to find a comfort level with end-of-life definitions.
The end of life is getting complicated for terminal patients, their families and doctors.
Pressure to expand the pool of organ donors and improve the success of transplants has led physicians to redefine death and shorten times before organ harvest, researchers say.
Ethicists and theologians are struggling to keep up with medical advances.
“The church understands it is not a medical organization, and it looks to those in the health care field to guide those decisions,” said Edward Furton of the National Catholic Bioethics Center. “We hold that death is the separation of the soul of the body. We don’t claim to know exactly when that occurs,” he said.
The dead-donor rule says a donor must be dead before organs are removed for transplant.
Federal and Colorado death-defining statutes require the irreversible cessation of the heart or of brain function.
For 40 years, the irreversible cessation of brain function — a standard developed at Harvard Medical School — has been an accepted medical definition of death. Since the mid-1990s, pronouncement of death upon cardiac arrest, followed by removal of organs, also has become accepted medical practice.
And the number of organ transplants has doubled in the past 20 years, said Thomas Hooyman, an ethicist at Regis University, a Jesuit college.
Yet organ donation after cardiac death, while requiring simpler testing, has caused ongoing confusion and controversy, Hooyman said, in part because it often involves a decision to remove life-sustaining equipment, such as a ventilator.
Christian ethicist Dieumeme Noelliste of the Denver Seminary said death must precede steps for organ removal. “If there is any doubt the first action has taken place, then the second should not follow. We must ensure death is irreversible,” he said. “Both lives are sacred.”
Now, two high-profile doctors are calling for an end to the dead-donor rule. Robert Truog, a Harvard University professor of medical ethics, and Franklin Miller, a bioethicist with the National Institutes of Health, say the dead-donor rule has required “unsupportable revisions of the definition of death” and arguments over minutes.
The two doctors say the ethical requirement for organ donation in cases of devastating neurological injury is valid informed consent by families and other patient surrogates.
“It (informed consent) is ethically sound, optimally respects the desires of those who wish to donate organs and has the potential to maximize the number and quality of organs available to those in need,” Truog and Miller wrote in the Aug. 14 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Truog and Miller wrote their opinion after Children’s Hospital followed its protocol of waiting less than two minutes after the hearts of two severely brain-damaged newborns stopped beating in April to remove those hearts and restart them in two other infants. The parents had authorized withdrawal of life support.
The Institute of Medicine, a think tank affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences, has advocated a five-minute wait after irreversible cessation of heart function.
Respected theologians had a comfort level with five minutes, Furton said. “The Catholic standard of erring on the side of life seems jeopardized,” he said. “You can’t take life, whatever good comes of it.”
Ethics Instruction Highlighted at Distance Education Conference
September 3rd, 2008
The Center was well represented at the recent Distance Education 2008 Conference in Madison, WI. The new ethics simulation was demonstrated in a well-attended Design Showcase entitled Using a Gaming Environment to Design an Ethics Simulation and hosted by Deb and Tom. Computer-based simulations are among the hot new teaching strategies in online instruction but are complex to design. Tom also hosted a roundtable discussion entitled Creating Coherent Conversations in a Cacophonous Culture. The popular culture as reflected in the media and the current political climate has done little to encourage civil conversation around tough issues. This roundtable was intended to explore best practices in creating online facilitating respectful online discussion around sensitive and complex issues. Tom explored challenges related to maintaining a safe online space, the importance of instructor presence, and strategies for mediating conflict. Highlights of the discussion will be shared with our own affiliate faculty at our October workshop.
New Book Addresses the Societal Impact of Nanotechnology
June 9th, 2008
In a new book, entitled Nanotechnology: Ethics and Society, Deb Bennett-Woods explores the complex dilemmas associated with the new science of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is projected to revolutionize every major industry and potnetially the global balance of power within the next 20 years. The societal impacts and the ethical dilemmas raised by this power new technology are introduced with a focus on manufacturing and workforce issues, the environment and sustainability, the military and national security and medicine.