Providence Center for Health Care Ethics is a resource for patients, families, doctors and health care workers.
Currently, donors provide 100% of the funds necessary to operate the Providence Center for Health Care Ethics. The center provides five to 10 consultations each week at Providence facilities throughout Oregon and helps to clarify difficult ethical issues such as:
Unclear Wishes
When is it appropriate to remove life support from an incapacitated patient whose wishes are not clear?
Disagreements
What happens when patients, families and caregivers disagree?
Epidemics
How do we decide who will get limited resources during an epidemic?
While seeking to distinguish itself as a theological center addressing ethics across all aspects of care, the center particularly focuses on ethical issues in the care of patients of diverse faith, spirituality and cultural traditions.
Besides supporting leadership, donations allow the ethics center to train thousands of physicians, nurses and other staff in ethical decision-making through its Ethics Core Curriculum programs. This curriculum enables health professionals to provide better patient care.
How to Make Ethical Decisions in Health Care
Sometimes there are no good answers in medicine. When gut-wrenching decisions must be made, Providence ethicists help caregivers, patients and families find answers that are culturally appropriate and ethically sound.
In this talk, Providence ethicists Nick Kockler, Ph.D., and Kevin Dirksen, M.Div., explore the decision-making process:
- If a patient with “DNR” tattooed on his chest attempts suicide, should we save him?
- Should we allow a homeless patient to leave the hospital if he hasn’t finished dialysis?
- If a patient has pulled out every tube and IV, should we put him on a breathing machine?
Additional Resources:
Ethics Center Resources - https://oregon.providence.org/our-services/p/providence-center-for-health-care-ethics/our-resources/
Ethics Center video library - https://oregon.providence.org/our-services/p/providence-center-for-health-care-ethics/forms-and-information/
Recent Articles published by Providence Ethicists - https://oregon.providence.org/our-services/p/providence-center-for-health-care-ethics/publications/
What are Health Care Ethics?
The four principles of health care ethics developed by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress in the 1985 Principles of Biomedical Ethics provide medical practitioners with guidelines to make decisions when they inevitably face complicated situations involving patients. The four principles of health care ethics are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.
Autonomy is the right of the patient to retain control over his or her body.
Beneficence states that health care providers must do all they can to benefit the patient in each situation.
Non-maleficence is basically “to do no harm” and is what all practitioners must consider in all decisions.
Justice requires an element of fairness in all medical decisions.
Source: sju.edu
How you can help
Give: Make a gift to Providence in support of health care ethics.
Get involved: Take a tour, meet our team in person or attend a gathering.
Introduce: Share information about our work with others or plan gatherings for your friends.
Remember: Remember Providence in your will or estate plan to ensure the future of the Center for Health Care Ethics.
