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Medical Ethics Outside the Ivory Tower

A new conference hosted by BYU Philosophy, Nursing, and the Sorensen Center tackles the toughest questions in medical ethics.

After a tragic accident, a child at a hospital has been declared brain dead. The attending physician knows that recovery is medically impossible and somberly notifies the family. The family, however, still holds onto hope. Their reasoning is the child was given a priesthood blessing in which his full recovery was promised. How does the physician, a believing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as a practiced professional, respond in this situation? How ought religious health-care professionals approach the possibility of miracles as a part of their work?

These sorts of situations evoke discussion for philosophers and health-care professionals alike, though their spheres rarely seem to overlap.

“Here in the College of Humanities, where we teach moral philosophy, we’re the ivory tower,” Visiting Assistant Professor Angela Wentz Faulconer (Medical Ethics) says. “It can be tempting to see us as all about theory, not practice.” Practicing physicians, on the other hand, often have to make practical ethical decisions as a part of their jobs. “They’re making these decisions on the front lines; people die and people live,” Faulconer says.

The first-ever conference on medical ethics at BYU, hosted by the Department of Philosophy, the
Sorenson Center for Moral & Ethical Leadership, and the College of Nursing, aimed to bring moral philosophy outside the ivory tower. Health-care professionals were invited to campus to earn continuing medical education credits through discussion with students and faculty at the conference, which was organized by Faulconer and held on September 16. It focused primarily on discussing challenging issues in medical ethics, particularly through a lens of faith.

The conference spotlighted a number of real situations that physicians had encountered in their practice, such as the example mentioned above. Following is another example: A drug user receives a new heart valve after drug usage damaged her heart. After relapsing, her continued drug usage damages the new valve, and she once again needs a transplant. Should she be offered another transplant, or should limited medical resources be reserved for those free of addiction?

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Faulconer leads a group discussion in a plenary session.
Photo by David John Arnett

There are no easy answers to these types of questions—indeed, no questions at the conference posed easy answers—but approaching questions like these in an interdisciplinary context offers new insights. This is where the philosophers came in. Faulconer says, “Our specialty is asking questions and trying to get at the core principles behind things. By applying some of our tools in the humanities, we can advance the discussion and help people think about what they want to do and what they should do about these issues.”

Both philosophy and nursing professors moderated discussions as attendees picked apart nuances and obligations in the case studies. One recurring topic was ageism. Is it ageist, for example, to deny treatment to an elderly person and provide treatment to a younger person when resources are scarce? What about when an elderly person has a higher chance of survival than a young person? Underlying these questions are the fundamental issues that ethics deals with: is preserving life itself the highest priority, or should length and quality of life be considered first?

In addition to such discussions, the conference offered a number of unique benefits and opportunities for attendees. First, the event helped expose students to the sorts of real issues that physicians cope with in practice.

Faulconer says, “I think for students to be exposed to these issues now, at the beginning of their medical training, that is something they will take with them from BYU and take to their medical schools.” Most students in attendance were premed, but the conference also targeted students interested in other health-care professions as well as law and ethics. “Our students are really impressive. The feedback we got was that the physicians loved having the students there and enjoyed hearing from them,” Faulconer says.

Further, because the conference was structured mainly as a series of discussions rather than lectures, attendees were free to share their wisdom, their questions, and their experiences—an opportunity that medical professionals appreciated. “It’s really good for the health-care professionals in our community to have the opportunity to talk about these things; it eases their burdens,” Faulconer says. “Hopefully, talking about it in conversation like this, physicians are also gaining ethical and moral insights.”

The BYU campus setting added another unique dimension to the conference. “Doing this conference at BYU allows those of us that are people of faith to bring the light of the gospel to shine on some of these questions,” Faulconer says. Discussions of medical ethics are often secular, but the conference made space for people of faith to bring their deepest commitments to bear in discussing the challenging topics.

Faulconer says she hopes the conference becomes a yearly fixture at BYU. “By turning the Sorensen Center’s investment in this year’s pilot event into an annual calendar highlight, we have the opportunity to bless students, health-care professionals, and faculty,” Faulconer says. “Looking at issues in medical ethics through a lens of faith meets a need that isn’t being met elsewhere and is something that BYU’s College of Humanities is uniquely qualified to do.”