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Internationally-trained Professionals’ Workshop

Practicing as a Bioethicist in

Canada.

August 28, 2012

Moji Adurogbangba; BDS, MPH, MA.

Bioethicist.

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Objectives

• The role of Bioethicist as it is generally experienced in Canada

• Common areas of responsibilities

• Education and specific training requirements

• Q & A

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What is Bioethics?

Ethics: that branch of philosophy dealing with:

-values relating to human conduct

-rightness and wrongness of certain actions

-goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions

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What is Bioethics?

Field of study concerned with the ethics and philosophical implications of: certain biological and medical procedures, technologies, treatments, as organ transplants, genetic engineering, and care of the terminally ill.

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What is Bioethics?

Application of ethics to medicine and healthcare

Professionalism Academiautilizing practical and literary skills engage in higher education and research

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Role as experienced

Health Care Organization (health care ethics)

Professionalism AcademiaBioethicist, Clinical ethicist, Ethicist Research ethicist

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……….as a profession

Common areas of responsibilities:•Develop and management of ethics program infrastructure•Organizational ethics leadership•Identification of ethical issues•Ethics consultation•Policy development•Education•Professional development

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Example issues• Is withdrawal appropriate?• What constitutes best interests?• How do we accommodate religious values?• Substitute Decision Making• Interpretation of Advanced Directives• Capacity• Moral Distress• Privacy/Confidentiality• The “non-compliant” patient

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How relevant is health care ethics?

• Accreditation Canada• Tri-Council Policy Statement• CIHR • Professional colleges• Cultural diversity• Increasing technology• A more knowledgeable public

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A more knowledgeable public

Winnipeg Free Press: Judge upholds life support. By: Kevin Rollason Updated: February 13, 2008

Doctors wanting to pull life support from an 84-year-old Winnipeg man (Golubchuck Samuel) have not only been ordered not to, but to do everything necessary to keep him alive.

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A more knowledgeable public

The medical dispute is being followed by people from around the world with even an on-line petition on the Internet garnering more than 2,800 signatures of support just days after being set up. And when you google ‘Golubchuk’ and ‘petition’, 421 websites pop up.

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Academia

• Lecturer: College & University

• Researcher

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Qualification

• Graduate degree in bioethics– Doctorate, or a Master’s degree – Clinical background for health care ethics

Or • Equivalent combination of education and/or

experience

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