S3E7 - Navigating Complex Ethical Issues

From pandemic response protocols to end-of-life care decisions, bioethics provides the essential compass for navigating medicine's most difficult choices. Host Dr. Kimberly Eck speaks with Kathy Kinlaw, Associate Director for the Center for Ethics at Emory University, who has spent over 30 years helping clinicians, patients, and policymakers address complex ethical challenges. Kinlaw reflects on the Center's public health ethics work during COVID-19, including a major survey of over 1,300 healthcare providers evaluating moral distress and resource constraints.

Kinlaw also discusses her instrumental role co-chairing the Georgia House of Representatives round table that drafted the state's statutory Advanced Directives legislation in 2007. She shares current efforts with the Georgia Department of Public Health to establish a state-wide electronic registry for advanced directives and PULST forms, ensuring patient values and treatment choices are honored across all points of care.

Key Takeaways:

• Ethics in Practice: How bioethics builds habits that strengthen moral behavior in clinical settings and public health policy.
• Advanced Care Planning: Why every adult 18 and older should document their healthcare preferences before a health crisis occurs.
• State-Wide Registry Efforts: How uploading advanced directives to an accessible digital registry ensures physicians can access critical patient directives instantaneously.

Resources:

• Free Advanced Care Planning Guide: https://hcethics.org/
• Learn more about the Center for Ethics: https://ethics.emory.edu/
• Learn more about the other Partner Organizations mentioned in this episode:

• Georgia Department of Public Health: https://dph.georgia.gov/

• Healthcare Ethics Consortium: https://hcethics.org/

• Georgia POLST: https://www.gapolst.org/

Call to Action:

Download the free Georgia Advanced Care Planning Guide developed by the Center for Ethics, Georgia Health Decisions, and its partners at hcethics.org. Connect with the Center for Ethics at https://ethics.emory.edu/ethics.emory.edu.

To stay updated on the latest research and impact at Emory, follow Impact in Progress on your favorite podcast platform, and if you are an Emory researcher interested in being featured, please reach out to Dr. Kimberly Eck at researchdevelopment@emory.edu.

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