1. Internationally-trained
Professionals’ Workshop
Practicing as a Bioethicist in
Canada.
August 28, 2012
Moji Adurogbangba; BDS, MPH, MA.
Bioethicist.
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2. Objectives
• The role of Bioethicist as it is generally
experienced in Canada
• Common areas of responsibilities
• Education and specific training requirements
• Q&A
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3. What is Bioethics?
Ethics: that branch of philosophy dealing with:
-values relating to human conduct
-rightness and wrongness of certain actions
-goodness and badness of the motives and ends
of such actions
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4. What is Bioethics?
Field of study concerned with the ethics and philosophical
implications of:
certain biological and medical procedures, technologies,
treatments, as organ transplants, genetic engineering,
and care of the terminally ill.
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5. What is Bioethics?
Application of ethics to medicine and healthcare
Professionalism Academia
utilizing practical and literary skills engage in higher education and
research
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6. Role as experienced
Health Care Organization (health care ethics)
Professionalism Academia
Bioethicist, Clinical ethicist, Ethicist Research ethicist
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7. ……….as a profession
Common areas of responsibilities:
•Develop and management of ethics program infrastructure
•Organizational ethics leadership
•Identification of ethical issues
•Ethics consultation
•Policy development
•Education
•Professional development
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8. Example issues
• Is withdrawal appropriate?
• What constitutes best interests?
• How do we accommodate religious values?
• Substitute Decision Making
• Interpretation of Advanced Directives
• Capacity
• Moral Distress
• Privacy/Confidentiality
• The “non-compliant” patient
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9. How relevant is health care ethics?
• Accreditation Canada
• Tri-Council Policy Statement
• CIHR
• Professional colleges
• Cultural diversity
• Increasing technology
• A more knowledgeable public
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10. A more knowledgeable
public
Winnipeg Free Press: Judge upholds life support.
By: Kevin Rollason Updated: February 13, 2008
Doctors wanting to pull life support from an 84-year-
old Winnipeg man (Golubchuck Samuel) have not
only been ordered not to, but to do everything
necessary to keep him alive.
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11. A more knowledgeable public
The medical dispute is being followed by people
from around the world with even an on-line petition on
the Internet garnering more than 2,800 signatures of
support just days after being set up. And when you
google ‘Golubchuk’ and ‘petition’, 421 websites pop
up.
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12. Academia
• Lecturer: College & University
• Researcher
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13. Qualification
• Graduate degree in bioethics
– Doctorate, or a Master’s degree
– Clinical background for health care ethics
Or
• Equivalent combination of education and/or
experience
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