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Panel Presentations (CME ENThusiast)

Professional and Personal Development

Ethics in our Everyday: Difficult Patients, Conflicting Directives, and Complex Circumstances

Monday, September 30, 2024
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT
Location: MBCC, Lincoln Road EF
CME/MOC Credit: 1
Disclosure(s):
Jennifer J. Shin, MD, SM:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Andrew G. Shuman, MD:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Norman D. Hogikyan MD FACS, Laryngologist and Clinical Ethicist:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

Jeanne L. Hatcher, MD, FACS:

faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: While Medical Ethics is often considered in the context of high intensity clinical dilemmas or research quagmires, everyday interactions also bring ethical predicaments which need moral resolutions. Everyday ethical challenges may occur in the setting of difficult patients, conflicting directives from leaders within the same group, complex coworkers, and work-life balance. These conundrums may not seem overtly entwined with ethical needs, but have substantial consequences, particularly as we weigh the impact of decisions which affect patient care, resource utilization, and burnout in an already depleted workforce. As Dr. Arthur L. Caplan (founder and Professor of the New York University Medical Ethics Division) has noted, “Ethics concerns not only questions of life and death but how one ought to live with and interact with others on a daily basis. The ethics of the ordinary is just as much part of health care ethics as the ethics of the extraordinary.”
With these concepts in mind, this program provides a case-based approach which arises from practical, real-life scenarios from the current year. These cases concentrate on demanding patients, contradictory mandates, and the complexities which converge when balancing the needs of coworkers and our families.
Ethical actions arise from principled thought, grounded in cornerstones including autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Particularly as we face ever-expanding work in an era of electronic barrage and abrupt intrusions, we can seek to strengthen our moral compasses with frameworks to guide decisions about problematic patients, divergent directives, and complex circumstances.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Apply ethics principles to caring for difficult and demanding patients.
  2. Understand ethical approaches to making decisions in an environment where leaders give conflicting directives.
  3. Discuss complex coworkers and work-life balance in light of a moral approach.

    Moderator(s)

  • Jennifer J. Shin, MD, SM

    Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, Harvard Medical School; Director for Data Innovation
    Harvard Medical School
    Boston, MA, United States

    Disclosure(s):

    faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

    • Panelist(s)

  • Andrew G. Shuman, MD

    Associate Professor
    University of Michigan Health System
    Ann Arbor, MI, United States

    Disclosure(s):

    faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

  • Norman D. Hogikyan MD FACS, Laryngologist and Clinical Ethicist

    Professor and Associate Chair
    Michigan Medicine Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
    Ann Arbor, MI, United States

    Disclosure(s):

    faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

  • Jeanne L. Hatcher, MD, FACS

    Associate Professor of Otolaryngology
    Emory University School of Medicine
    Atlanta, GA, United States

    Disclosure(s):

    faculty for this accredited education activity has no relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.