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BETTER
TRAINING MEANS BETTER CARE
The department recently hosted its Second Annual International Mardi Gras Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Ethics. The focus of this year's program was medical ethics and the new issues confronting doctors and medical personnel in hospitals, offices, and waiting rooms across the country. "Most physicians say 'I'm an ethical person and in most cases my judgment is clear,' but new issues like cloning and stem cell research are showing that further, deeper discussion is needed," says James Taylor, assistant professor of philosophy. Topics including the relevance of medical ethics to clinical practice and potential harm to patients were discussed by ethics experts from institutions including Oxford University, New York University, Brown University, and the Australian National University, as well as physicians from the Baton Rouge medical community. In addition to the recent symposium, the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies and Pennington Biomedical Research Center recently hired Kevin Elliot, an expert who will advise on ethics, as well as legal and regulatory affairs. The Greater Baton Rouge Health Forum (GBRHF), a group of Baton Rouge-area doctors, hospital administrators, and healthcare leaders representing a five-parish area, has partnered with the department for about seven years, working to provide medical ethics training, create a resource to work with hospital ethics committees, and identify speakers to contribute to ethics symposia. The speakers' travel costs are funded by GBRHF and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. "The benefits of our partnership are many," says Virginia Pearson, GBRHF executive director. "The long-term impact is clear. We will have better trained doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals, better informed patients, and better prepared students studying both medicine and ethics." According to Taylor and Pearson, doctors have access to outside, independent voices from ethicists, and the University has access to the new trends and modes of thinking affecting the medical profession. Both the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies and GBRHF are looking to expand the benefits and features of their partnership. The development of a medical ethics internship program for college students is underway and the two groups hope to have it operating before the end of 2004. They are also in the process of assembling a group of professionals to act as a sounding board for emerging situations and issues and to act as a secondary information source for patients and their families. The Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies has also recently received the honor of hosting the 32nd Conference on Value Inquiry, an annual meeting of experts in fields such as ethics, aesthetics, political theory, and economics. ON
THE WEB: from Spring 2004 Issue
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The
first principle of the American Medical Association's Code of
Medical Ethics is, "A physician shall be dedicated to providing
competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human
dignity and rights." The LSU Department of Philosophy &
Religious Studies, along with community partners, is working to
give physicians every tool they need to handle new situations
and fulfill this sacred principle that medical professionals follow
every day.