PHEN suggests a theme for Health Ethics Week each year, however, you are welcome to organize your event around any ethics topic that is relevant or of interest to your group.
The following is a cursory list of possible health ethics topics around which you can plan your event. Below each main topic, we have included several subtopics or questions that might be addressed during your activity. Whatever forum you decide on for your activity, be sure to include lots of time for discussion and dialogue between participants. If you would like more information about any of these or other health ethics issues, please do not hesitate to contact the Provincial Health Ethics Network or any of the supporting organizations. We will be glad to help in any way we can!
Advanced Care Planning
How is advanced care planning different from personal directives?
What are the goals and expected outcomes of advanced care planning?
Who should one approach for advanced care planning?
When and where should one initiate advance care planning?
How can a staff member or loved one raise these issues without alarming patients?
What should a patient do if he/she believes that some family members will disagree with his/her wishes?
Animal Ethics
Do animals need rights?
Should all animals have rights?
Breaking Bad News
What if a patient is emotionally unstable and bad news might make it worse?
How can one be sensitive to the emotional needs of patients and remain professional?
Capital Punishment
Is it ethically justifiable to put a convicted criminal to death?
Circumcision
What are the ethical issues surrounding female and male circumcision or genital cutting?
Codes of Ethics
How does the Code of Ethics of a particular health professional association /college relate to a particular ethics issue you have faced?
Complementary & Alternative Therapies
What ethical issues are associated with complementary therapies?
What are the caregivers' professional obligations with respect to complementary therapy?
Who should fund complementary therapies and research
How do you define "traditional" vs. "complementary" therapies?
Confidentiality
What are the ethical principles upon which the duty of confidentiality is based?
What does the duty of confidentiality require?
What kinds of disclosure are inappropriate?
When is it ethically justifiable for confidentiality to be breached?
Diversity & Cross-Cultural Issues
Why is it important to respect personal beliefs of others?
What is the responsibility of a health care provider when a patient endangers his/her health by refusing a treatment based on beliefs with which the provider strongly disagrees?
Should parents be able to refuse to provide their minor children with necessary medical treatment on the basis of their beliefs?
Do-Not-Resuscitate Orders
What ethical issues are associated with providing or not providing CPR?
How should a patient's quality of life be judged?
What should a health care team do if a family disagrees with whether to issue a DNR order?
Ethical Theory
How do you define ethics?
How do you define health ethics?
What frameworks or guidelines do you use to help make ethics decisions?
End of Life Issues
How do you define a "good death"?
What goals should a caregiver have in mind when working towards a good death for his/her patient?
What should caregivers know about the hospice/palliative care approach?
How do caregivers who care for the dying deal with their own feelings?
Ethics Committees & Ethics Consultation
What is the role of an ethics committee?
What is the difference between the work of an ethics committee and an ethics consultant?
Under what circumstances should an ethics committee be consulted?
What ethics resources are available to caregivers, patients, family at your organization?
Euthanasia
What would you do if someone you loved asked you to help them die?
Futility
What is "non-beneficial treatment" or "medical futility"?
What are the ethical obligations of caregivers when an intervention is deemed to be futile?
Who decides if a particular treatment is futile?
Lying
Is there ever an ethically justifiable reason to lie?
Health
How do you define health?
How do you define illness?
Do these definitions impact how your resolve ethics issues related to health and illness?
What cultural, religious or other influences affect concepts of health?
Health System Reform
What are some ethical arguments for and against increasing public health care funding?
What are some ethical arguments for and against increasing the role of private, for-profit institutions in the health system?
Informed Consent
What are the necessary components of informed consent?
What ethical issues arise when a patient's decision-making capacity varies from day to day?
What are the criteria for competency?
Is there such a thing as presumed/implied consent?
Long-Term Care
What are the ethical implications of referring to individuals as patients? Residents? Clients? Consumers?
How are the needs of individuals in long-term care facilities different from those in acute or community care?
How does the health care provider-resident relationship in long-term care differ from the health care provider-patient relationship in acute or community care?
Maternal/Fetal Conflict
What ethical issues arise when medical therapy is indicated for a fetus yet contraindicated for the mother? Can the two be separated?
When do fetuses have rights?
Medical Error
Do professionals have an ethical duty to disclose information about medical errors to their patients? If so, under what circumstances is the duty binding?
What should a caregiver do if he/she sees someone else make a mistake?
Parental Decision-Making
Who should have the moral authority to make decisions about treatment for children?
When should parental authority to make medical decisions for their children be challenged?
What happens when a mature child disagrees with his/her parents about medical treatment?
Personal Directives
What is a personal directive?
What types of personal directives are currently available?
Why are personal directives important to health and personal care?
When should a health care provider refer to a patient's personal directive?
What if a patient changes his/her mind or his/her family disagrees with the directive?
What are the limitations of personal directives?
Provider-Patient Relationship
What are some different provider-patient relationship models?
What happens when caregivers and patients disagree?
What techniques can a provider use to resolve conflicts with a particularly "frustrating" patient?
How can patients address situations in which they have strongly differing values from their caregivers?
Professionalism
What does it mean to be a member of a profession?
What is the difference between a profession and a business?
What are the recognized obligations and values of various professional caregivers?
Public Health Ethics
Should patients be permitted to refuse to undergo routine preventative health measures?
When can a patient be held for medical treatment against his/her will?
What are the ethical issues involved in forced quarantine?
Quality of Life
How do you define quality of life?
How do you define sanctity of life?
When should consideration of quality of life override that of sanctity of life?
Whose standards should be used when deciding the quality of a patient's life?
Research Ethics
What are the strengths and limitations of the Tri-Council Policy Statement Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans?
What are the main ethical principles that govern research with human subjects?
What are the components of an ethically valid informed consent for research?
Resource Allocation
How are resource allocation decisions made in your organization? Are ethical issues considered?
Should a caregiver be able to make allocation decisions based on judgments about quality of life?
What are the various levels of health resource allocation within your organization and what implications do decisions made at one level have on another?
Right to Health Care
Is a right to health care ethically justifiable?
What would such a right look like?
What is the purpose and function of government-funded health coverage? Is it ethically justifiable?
Can our health care system deal with the funding problems it faces while remaining compatible with the belief in a right to health care?
Spirituality and Medicine
Why, if at all, is it important to attend to spirituality in health care?
How should caregivers work with pastoral care workers?
What role should a caregiver's personal beliefs play in the caregiver-patient relationship?
How can respect for persons involve a spiritual perspective?
Sporting Ethics
Can the use of performance- enhancing drugs ever be ethically justified?
Termination of Life-Sustaining Treatment
When is it justifiable to discontinue life-sustaining treatment?
Is there a moral distinction between withholding and withdrawing food? Fluids?
Is it justifiable to withhold or withdraw treatment because of resource allocation considerations?
Truth-Telling and Withholding Information
How much should patients be told about their condition?
Is it ethically justifiable to withhold information about a patient's condition if it could be harmful to him/ her?
Is it ethically justifiable to withhold information about a patient's condition if the family asks for the truth to be withheld
