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The Educational Needs of Ethics Committees

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Glenn G. Griener  and
Janet L. Storch
Glenn G. Griener
Affiliation:
Division of Bioethics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Janet L. Storch
Affiliation:
Dean of the Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
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Extract

Hospital ethics committees must be knowledgeable if they are to perform consultations, advise administrators on policy, or offer educational programs. Because the membership of the committee is interdisciplinary, with most drawn from the healthcare professions, the individuals who join cannot be expected to bring knowledge of bioethies with them. Therefore, a new committee must spend time developing expertise before it can appropriately serve the hospital community. Although the need for committee self-education is generally recognized, it is seldom discussed in any detail. When discussed at all, expertise in bioethies is usually described as composed of a familiarity with an identifiable body of knowledge and mastery over techniques of moral reasoning. It is assumed that a committee can develop this expertise early in its life through a short course of study.

Type
Bioethies Education
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , Summer 1994 , pp. 467 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

Notes

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14. This claim requires some clarification. The two Catholic committees traced their roots to medical moral committees, established years earlier, whose primary interest was in reproductive issues and whose primary role was to approve any request for sterilization procedures. In recent years, both of these committees had decided to broaden their interests. Once this decision was taken, termination of treatment was the first set of topics to be considered. (The role of approving sterilization procedures was then delegated to a subcommittee.)

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17. The administrators interviewed were unanimous in the opinion that specific administrative decisions should not find a place on the ethics committee's agenda. Some administrators would welcome committee input on the process and policies used to arrive at these difficult decisions.

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