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Health Care Ethics USA
We have now begun the academic year at the Center for Health Care Ethics. I am delighted to inform you that we have another two faculty personnel at the Center. In addition to our regular faculty (Jim DuBois, Griffin Trotter, Jill Burkemper, and myself) the following faculty are joining the Center as permanent faculty: Sandra Johnson, who is our Tenet Endowed Chair in Health Law and Ethics, stood down as the University Provost last Spring and "activated" her appointment at the Center in July; and Ana Iltis will join the Center in January to initiate a tenure-track appointment as an assistant professor, specializing in organizational ethics and Institutional Review Board issues. We are immensely blessed to have Sandra and Ana at the Center – we extend the warmest welcome to both. And, of course, we offer a warm welcome our new students and a welcome back to all our other students as we begin the new academic year together. Last Spring the Center developed its strategic plan which was approved by the University administration over summer. Let me quote the all important description of our mission: " The mission of the Center is academic research integrated with teaching, learning and service in health care ethics. Our mission brings the Catholic, Jesuit tradition into interdisciplinary discourse with our pluralistic society." This mission statement will inspire and shape our Center's contribution to the University's Capital Campaign that was initiated in July 2002 ("The Campaign for Saint Louis University: Where Knowledge Touches Lives"). I look forward to working with our many partners in Catholic health care as the Center pursues this campaign to realize its main strategic goals: to expand the Center's academic research; to enhance the scholarly reputation of the Center's interdisciplinary PhD program in health care ethics; to develop innovative and cross-cultural partnerships in the academy and in health care. As usual, this issue of Health Care Ethics USA has three essays addressing organizational ethics, medical ethics, and ethics foundations. The first essay, "Medical Error and Patient Safety" by myself addresses an increasingly worrisome issue in organizational ethics in health care. The essay advocates for a major shift from blaming professionals to fixing systems and processes as the best way of enhancing patient safety. The second essay, "Is Living Organ Donation Ethically Acceptable" is by James DuBois, PhD, DSc, who is a member of the tenured faculty at the Center. Jim discusses this much disputed issue in medical ethics by arguing not only for policies and practices that minimize risks but also for consent that is both free and informed. The third essay, "Is It Ethical to Legislate an Age of Consent for Health Care Decision Making?" is by Ann Suziedelis, MA, who is a senior student in our PhD program. Ann considers the tension between autonomy and beneficence based approaches as contributing significant insight from discourse on ethics foundations to this policy dilemma. I hope you enjoy the essays and I look forward to receiving suggestions for topics that we might address in future essays. Professor Gerard Magill, PhD |
From the Director... |
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