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12A surrogate’s secrets are(n’t) safe with me: patient confidentiality in the care of a gestational surrogateJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (4): 213-217. 2021.Gestational surrogacy relies on a legal agreement between the surrogate and the intended parents to define the roles and responsibilities of the parties, including explicit consent by the surrogate to allow the physician to release all pregnancy-related medical information to the intended parents. In the event of surrogate misconduct, however, physicians may feel conflicted if the surrogate asks the physician to withhold information about potentially dangerous behaviour in pregnancy from the int…Read more
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17Dueling Definitions of Abortifacient: How Cultural, Political, and Religious Values Affect Language in the Contraception DebateHastings Center Report 50 (4): 14-19. 2020.Contraception works by preventing fertilization of an egg or preventing implantation of a fertilized embryo. For those who believe pregnancy begins at implantation, contraceptives preventing implantation are not abortifacient. However, for those who assert that pregnancy begins at fertilization, any agent causing the intentional loss of an embryo, even prior to implantation, is abortifacient, both morally and for lack of a different term to describe the postfertilization, preimplantation loss. I…Read more
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28Imagine a world… where ectogenesis isn’t needed to eliminate social and economic barriers for womenJournal of Medical Ethics 46 (2): 83-84. 2020.We can imagine a world in which ectogenesis provides a safe gestating space that eliminates maternal morbidity and mortality while maximising healthy outcomes for babies. In this world, women, no longer physically—and visibly—pregnant, are no longer economically, socially or physically disadvantaged due to the potential for pregnancy and birth. Because everyone can access the same technology, women are able to work without fear of pregnancy-related discrimination or restrictions, and health disp…Read more
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3The Top 10 Questions Facing the Field of Clinical Ethics in 2020: Reflections on the Evolving Clinical Ethics UnConference (review)Journal of Clinical Ethics 31 (3): 233-240. 2020.Evolving Clinical Ethics: A Working UnConference, held 5 through 7 February 2020 in Houston, Texas, brought together 91 participants from a variety of institutions, many of whom are engaged in clinical ethics work. The event followed the success of the first Clinical Ethics UnConference hosted by the Cleveland Clinic Center for Bioethics in 2018, and offered an opportunity for ethicists to share both their challenges and their solutions to clinical ethics issues. In this article we explore the e…Read more
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16An Open Discussion of the Impact of OpenNotes on Clinical Ethics: A Justification for Harm-Based Exclusions from Clinical Ethics DocumentationJournal of Clinical Ethics 33 (4): 303-313. 2022.The OpenNotes (ON) mandate in the 21st Century Cures Act requires that patients or their legally authorized representatives be able to access their medical information in their electronic medical record (EMR) in real time. Ethics notes fall under the domain of this policy. We argue that ethics notes are unique from other clinical documentation in a number of ways: they lack best-practice guidelines, are written in the context of common misconceptions surrounding the purpose of ethics consultatio…Read more
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8Variation in Clinical Ethics Fellowship Programs: Lessons from the FieldJournal of Clinical Ethics 31 (3): 277-282. 2020.Given the enduring debate over what constitutes quality, and therefore appropriate training, in clinical ethics consultation, it is unsurprising that there is variation in the structure and content of clinical ethics fellowship programs. However, this variation raises questions about the value of fellowship training when the ethicists that emerge from these programs might be quite different. The specifics of fellowship programs are largely internal. As such, the extent of variation and whether s…Read more
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14A surrogate’s secrets are(n’t) safe with me: patient confidentiality in the care of a gestational surrogateJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (4): 213-217. 2021.Gestational surrogacy relies on a legal agreement between the surrogate and the intended parents to define the roles and responsibilities of the parties, including explicit consent by the surrogate to allow the physician to release all pregnancy-related medical information to the intended parents. In the event of surrogate misconduct, however, physicians may feel conflicted if the surrogate asks the physician to withhold information about potentially dangerous behaviour in pregnancy from the int…Read more
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5Bridging the Divide between a Patient’s Blog and the Staff’s PrivacyAmerican Journal of Bioethics 21 (7): 73-74. 2021.What were once considered private domains of life have become more public in the last 20 years with the rise of social media. Illness narratives of patients with chronic, severe, or terminal condit...
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27What the HEC-C? An Analysis of the Healthcare Ethics Consultant-Certified Program: One Year inAmerican Journal of Bioethics 20 (3): 9-18. 2020.Efforts to professionalize the field of bioethics have led to the development of the Healthcare Ethics Consultant-Certified (HEC-C) Program intended to credential practicing healthcare ethics consultants (HCECs). Our team of professional ethicists participated in the inaugural process to support the professionalization efforts and inform our views on the value of this credential from the perspective of ethics consultants. In this paper, we explore the history that has led to this certification p…Read more
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9Ethical Analysis and Beyond! How Christian Anthropology and the Concept of Dignity Can Also Address Moral Distress in End-of-Life CareAmerican Journal of Bioethics 20 (12): 23-25. 2020.McCarthy et al. have made an important contribution to the field of ethics by identifying the important similarities between Christian and secular bioethics that can be drawn on to further s...
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16The Existential Crisis of Clinical Ethics ConsultantsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 22 (4): 64-65. 2022.With the growth and evolution of the field of clinical ethics, the one constant has been its variation. Resolving ethical issues at the bedside is done differently across the country based on one’s...
Areas of Specialization
Medical Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Medical Ethics |