Ethics Talk

Chaplains provide spiritual and religious support to patients, families, and clinicians, but they also serve as key communicators, helping mediate between patients and medical teams. This month on Ethics Talk, we spoke with Rabbi Susan Harris, the director of chaplaincy at Boston Children's Hospital, about the strategies that chaplains use to help patients and families articulate their goals and navigate logistical and emotional challenges that arise in the hospital.

A patient with a severe burn injury doesn't just need physical care and support to recover – suffering such injuries can also create significant psychological and emotional challenges. This month on Ethics Talk, we sit down with Dr. Monica Gerrek, a burn ethicist, and Andrea Rubin, a burn survivor, to explore how burn teams can support patients' autonomy in the aftermath of their injuries. We also discuss the need to provide comprehensive and interdisciplinary care that responds to each individual patient.

Today's modern trauma system is a relatively new phenomenon, and trauma surgeons are constantly responding to the changing needs of the populations they serve. This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with Dr. David Hoyt about the historic evolution of the trauma system from its roots in care on the battlefield, and explore how trauma surgeons are responding to the country's aging population through geriatric trauma care in a conversation with Dr. Karen Brasel.

Surgeons can have an impact on patients and communities that goes well beyond the operating room, but their ability -- and obligation -- to make a broader impact isn't always clear. This month on Ethics Talk, we hear from Dr. Shane Morrison and Cedar Neary about the meaning of surgical justice and how plastic surgeons can use the concept to deliver better care to their patients, in particular within the field of gender-affirming surgery.

As media outlets have documented over the past year, maternal mortality is higher in the U.S. than in any developed country, and there are alarming racial disparities between black and white mothers. This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with Dorothy Roberts, Nadia Sawicki, and Dr. Stacie Geller about the history behind today's crisis in maternal mortality, how common ways of thinking about maternal and fetal health can inadvertently lead to worse outcomes for women and their newborns, and what we can do to tackle the problem of maternal mortality head-on.

What can comic art about illness and health care offer patients and families as they navigate health challenges? This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with Brian Fies and Phoebe Potts, the authors of graphic novels about their experiences with health care, about how comic art is a unique and powerful medium for communicating about difficult and emotional encounters with illness and health care.

Is violence a problem for criminal justice enforcement to handle, or is it a health problem to be addressed by clinicians and other health care professionals? This month on Ethics Talk, we feature a special interview with Dr. Gary Slutkin, the author of an article in the January issue about how the health sector can help reduce violence by treating it as a contagion, about what it means to think about violence as an epidemic, and how this frame might transform the way our society responds to violence.

Global climate change has been called the greatest health threat of the twenty-first century, and its effects are already being felt in communities around the world. Clinicians have a central role to play in combating health risks related to climate change and raising awareness about its health effects, but how can individual health professionals tackle such an enormous problem? This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with photographer and medical student Jordan Emont about how art can communicate the health impact of climate change, hear from patient Louise Hobden about the health challenges of hot and humid days for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and discuss the effect climate change will have on global health and how clinicians can help intervene with Dr. Kate Weinberger.

The concept of "co-creation," borrowed from the business sector, integrates patients into the process of developing health care products and systems, so that their perspective and input can ultimately inform the care they receive. It's a simple but revolutionary idea, and it's being applied across health care sectors – including in the way health care is designed. This month on Ethics Talk, we talk with designer John Meyer about what it means to think about design in health care, hear from Laura Webb, a patient who has taken a central role in creating a health care application that directly benefits her, and explore how "design thinking" can transform medical education with Dr. Bon Ku.