Topic: Clinical Ethics

Ethics for Lunch

This monthly conference series at Johns Hopkins Hospital attracts 60-70 attendees to each session from the entire hospital community – physicians, nurses, medical students, social workers, chaplains, etc. – to participate in discussion about an important clinical ethics issue.

2018-19 Panels (Upcoming)

Tuesday, June 18
Looking Back and Looking Forward 2019

Noon-1:15 p.m.
Wilmer Eye Center, Patz Lecture Hall (note change in usual location)

2018-19 Panels (Complete)

Tuesday, May 21
When Patients Refuse Aspects of Care that Affects Overall Treatment Plan

Tuesday, April 16
26th Annual Shallenberger Lecture
“Beyond Charity: Re-Imagined Communities”
James Corbett, M.Div., J.D.
Principal, Initium Health

Tuesday, March 19
Informed Consent: When Patients Change Their Minds

 

Tuesday, Feb. 19
Ethical Challenges Associated with Enrolling Families in Genetic/Genomic Research

Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019
Ethical decision-making for patients with substance use disorders requiring repeat cardiac valve replacement surgery

Issues of Distrust Around Neurological Death, Organ Donation and the Role of Spiritual Care
Tuesday, December 18, 2018

 

Breastfeeding for US Women with HIV – A Medical and Ethical Analysis
Tuesday, November 20, 2018

(Video not available at panelist’s request)

 

Ethics and the Care of Transgender Patients – Justice / Harm / Respect
Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Ethics for Lunch: The Intersection of Decision-Making Capacity and Mental Illness
Sept 18, 2018

Gail Geller, ScD, MHS

In addition to her work in genetics, Dr. Geller’s other substantive areas of scholarship include the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), the role of palliative care in chronic diseases, and the medical socialization process.  She received one of the highly coveted NIH “challenge” grants to explore the integration of palliative care in the management of children, young adults and families affected by chronic, life-threatening disorders (muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease). She received a prestigious Kornfeld Fellowship to explore the intersection of bioethics and CAM. She has served as co-director of the educational component of the Johns Hopkins CAM Center, ethics representative on the Data Safety & Monitoring Board of the National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and adjunct faculty at the Tai Sophia Institute in their Master’s Program in Transformative Leadership and Social Change.  For 15 years, she co-directed the required Integrative Medicine course for Hopkins medical students, and the Healer’s Art elective. Several of the grants onwhich she has served as PI, Co-PI or Co-I have focused oncultivating respect, trust, empathy, wonder, and tolerance forambiguity among current and future health professionals. The unifying themes that animate her work are communication and decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, and the intrapersonal, interpersonal and social/cultural forces that influence moral development, attitudes and behavior. 

Dr. Geller also has longstanding interests in ethics education. She served as Co-Deputy Director of the Greenwall Fellowship Program in Bioethics & Health Policy until 2012, and now, as the Berman Institute’s Director of Education Initiatives, she oversees the Hecht-Levi Fellowship Program in Bioethicsand the Masters in Bioethics . Dr. Geller has occupied several educational leadership positions in the SOM.  She was involved in the revision to the undergraduate medical curriculum that took place in 2009. Currently, she co-directs the “culture of medicine” core theme which includes horizontal strands of particular relevance to ethics, professionalism and social justice. In addition, she directs the Scholarly Concentrationcalled the HEART (Humanism, Ethics, and the ‘Art’ ofMedicine), teaches in the “Medical Humanities & Social Medicine” elective, serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for Medical Humanities & Social Medicine, and directs the Program in Arts, Humanities & Health.  She is a  member of the School of Medicine’s Admissions Committee.   

Dr. Geller has served on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Bioethics & Humanities, the scientific review panel for the ELSI Program (Ethical, Legal and Social Issues) at NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute, the Advisory Board of the Center for Genetics Research Ethics and Law (CGREAL) at Case Western Reserve University, and the IOM Committee on the Review of Omics-Based Tests for Predicting Patient Outcomes in Clinical Trials. She was a Consultant to the Ethics Working Group of the National Children’s Study, the Informed Consent Working Group of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing (SACGT), the CDC’s Program in Public Health Genetics, and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. She is a Fellow of the Hastings Center. 

Joseph A. Carrese, MD, MPH, FACP

Joseph Carrese, MD, MPH, FACP is Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, a member of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and a core faculty member of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

Dr. Carrese’s scholarship focuses on clinical ethics and professionalism, with a particular interest in medical education, examining ethical issues in the context of cultural diversity and clinical ethics consultation. Dr. Carrese’s peer-reviewed articles have been published in leading medical and bioethics journals, such as JAMA, BMJ, CHEST, Academic Medicine, the Hastings Center Report, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Ethics, the American Journal of Bioethics and Medical Education. Dr. Carrese has been a visiting professor at several academic medical institutions and he has been invited to speak at many national and international meetings.

Dr. Carrese was on the Board of Directors for the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities from 2012-15. In 2012 Dr. Carrese was a founding Board member and Chair-elect of the Academy for Professionalism in Healthcare (APHC). From 2013-2015 he was Chair of the Board of Directors of APHC and he was the immediate past-Chair 2016-18.

Dr. Carrese received a National Award for Scholarship in Medical Education at the Society of General Internal Medicine annual meeting in April 2008 for his body of work in the area of clinical ethics education. From 2009-2014 Dr. Carrese was a member of the ASBH standing committee on Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs (CECA) and in October 2011 he received the ASBH Presidential Citation Award for his work on this committee. Dr. Carrese is a Fellow of the Hastings Center.

Dr. Carrese is Chair of the Ethics Committee at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Chair of an Institutional Review Board at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and primary care doctor to a panel of patients seen at the Bayview Medical Offices internal medicine clinic on the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center campus.

Dr. Carrese graduated from Williams College and the University at Buffalo School of Medicine. He completed a fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he studied medical ethics and anthropology. Dr. Carrese joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 1994.

Prof. Rushton Named to National Committee

Cynda Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN, has been chosen to serve on a newly formed National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine committee to develop recommendations for systemic solutions to combating clinician burnout. Rushton was one of only two nurses selected for the committee and will bring knowledge and insight as an experienced clinician, educator, and researcher in moral distress and suffering of clinicians, moral resilience, and cultures of ethical health care practice.

Burnout remains a critical problem for health care providers across the country and has potential for significant consequences on the profession’s workforce development, retention, and on the quality and safety of patient care. The committee—Systems Approaches to Improve Patient Care by Supporting Clinician Well-Being—will examine the current scientific evidence on burnout and implications for both clinician and patient, and develop interventions to promote well-being and resilience.

“Increased severity of illness, patient volumes, pressures to reduce costs, and moral distress are just a few of the factors putting additional stress on health care providers today,” says Rushton. “To turn the tide of burnout, we must commit to fundamental systemic changes in health care along with expanding tools to support the resilience and integrity of frontline clinicians.”

Beginning at its first meeting in October, the committee will also investigate key factors that influence clinical workflow and workload, functioning of interdisciplinary care teams, use of technology, and regulations and policies that impact clinicians and their ability to work well within their role and the health care system.

As JHSON Anne and George L. Bunting Professor of Clinical Ethics and a founding member of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Rushton has been internationally recognized for her contributions to bioethics, ethics education, and clinical ethics consultation. In 2014, she co-led the first National Nursing Ethics Summit, held at JHSON, where nursing leaders developed the Blueprint for 21st Century Nursing Ethics. In 2016, she co-led a symposium focusing on transforming moral distress into moral resiliency and was co-chair of a subsequent American Nurses Association’s professional issues panel.

Her most recent work has been designing, implementing, and evaluating the Mindful Ethical Practice and Resilience Academy (MEPRA) to build moral resilience in frontline nurses who face ethical challenges related to patient suffering, adequacy of informed consent, resource allocation, and ineffective communication and care coordination. She has edited and authored the book Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare to be published by the Oxford University Press.

Recognized as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women, Rushton has received three post-doctoral fellowships: a Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Executive Fellowship, a Kornfeld Fellowship in end-of-life, ethics, and palliative care, and a Mind and Life Institute Fellowship in Contemplative Science. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and recognized as an “Edge Runner” and a Hasting’s Center Fellow.

“Now is the time to restore the integrity of clinicians by dismantling the systemic barriers that undermine their ability to provide safe, quality care to the patients and families they are called to serve,” says Rushton.

    – originally published by Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

Jean Anderson, MD

Dr. Anderson is a fellow of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a member of the American Academy of HIV Medicine. She has been an invited peer reviewer for American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Journal of Women’s Health and Journal of Gynecologic Health. Dr. Anderson has been recognized six times by the Johns Hopkins Gynecology and Obstetrics House Staff with the Excellence in Teaching and Mentorship Award. She is the recipient of the 2013 Constance Wofsey Women’s Health Investigator Award from the AIDS Clinical Trials Group.

Dr. Anderson received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from David Lipscomb College and earned her M.D. from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She completed her medical residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Anderson joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1987.