Tag / Ethics Committees
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![A graphic stating the Ethics Dispatch is like an ethics committee meeting in a box. With four topic sections: monthly hot topic, new clinical ethics case study, current bioethics news stories and ethical musing essay.]()
When Empathy Is Turned into Fear
Empathy is redirected into self-protection. When immigration enforcement is highly visible, inconsistently applied, and no longer constrained by once-respected boundaries, people begin to ask not only what is happening to them? but could this happen to us? Distance begins to feel safer than beneficence. All this while the steps needed to protect immigrant patients are well known, ethically justified and within bounds of the law. The Center for Practical Bioethics.
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![A graphic stating the Ethics Dispatch is like an ethics committee meeting in a box. With four topic sections: monthly hot topic, new clinical ethics case study, current bioethics news stories and ethical musing essay.]()
When the ECMO Bridge Leads Nowhere
No Tidy Answers: When the ECMO Bridge Leads Nowhere Perhaps it’s not about destination but the journey. That when we cannot alter the destination, we can profoundly shape the experience of getting there. The case study picks up the topic with a patient whose husband requests ECMO to save her life without her consent. Ryan follows up with the one question to ask about ECMO and other medical miracles. The Center for Practical Bioethics.
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![A graphic stating the Ethics Dispatch is like an ethics committee meeting in a box. With four topic sections: monthly hot topic, new clinical ethics case study, current bioethics news stories and ethical musing essay.]()
Doing Harm: Vaccine Policy in the Age of Distortion
Doing Harm: Vaccine Policy in the Age of Distortion The January 2026 Ethics Dispatch discusses how the current head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is calling for the reduction or even the elimination of childhood vaccine and by doing so, is doing harm. The Center for Practical Bioethics.
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![A graphic stating the Ethics Dispatch is like an ethics committee meeting in a box. With four topic sections: monthly hot topic, new clinical ethics case study, current bioethics news stories and ethical musing essay.]()
Ethics Dispatch November 2025 Beneficence
The November 2025 Ethics Dispatch discusses beneficence in the season of caring . What does it mean to actively do good? 150,000 people with serious mental illness live in nursing homes, often longer than their medical needs require because the broader system has no place for them to go. In the case study we learn about a patient ready for discharge, but no facilities will take him. Then we discuss the shortcomings of EMTALA and how they demonstrate the need to rediscover the theory of medicine so that its practice meets patients’ needs. The Center for Practical Bioethics.
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![A graphic stating the Ethics Dispatch is like an ethics committee meeting in a box. With four topic sections: monthly hot topic, new clinical ethics case study, current bioethics news stories and ethical musing essay.]()
Ethics Dispatch October 2025
The October 2025 Ethics Dispatch highlights how misinformation, political interference, and profit-driven publishing threaten the integrity of science and public trust in healthcare. Defending evidence and fairness is a moral duty rooted in bioethics’ principle of justice. The Center for Practical Bioethics calls for renewed commitment to truth, transparency, and ethical integrity in research and public discourse.
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![A graphic stating the Ethics Dispatch is like an ethics committee meeting in a box. With four topic sections: monthly hot topic, new clinical ethics case study, current bioethics news stories and ethical musing essay.]()
Ethics Dispatch September 2025
In this Ethics Dispatch, the Center for Practical Bioethics discusses the decision to scapegoat immigrants and strip away healthcare access is a cautionary tale about how easily ethics can be subverted by politics. It shows us how fear can be weaponized to dismantle justice, and how health policy can be turned into a tool of harm.
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![A list of the sections in the Ethics Dispatch.]()
Ethics Dispatch August 2025
Nurses and frontline staff bear the brunt of a growing wave of hostility, facing risks that extend far beyond the usual emotional toll of caregiving. In this Ethics Dispatch, the Center for Practical Bioethics analyzes competing values that govern providers’ response to violence, as well as institutional responsibilities and Ryan shares a personal story about his response to an aggressive family member.
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![Ryan at a hospital ethics committee meeting.]()
Ethics Committee Services
Through CPB Ethics Services your organization can become an Ethics Committee Consortium Member with many benefits.
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Revising an Ethics Committee Handbook
Occasionally an institution needs to revise its ethics committee handbook.
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Measuring Impact of Hospital Ethics Committees
Ellen Averett, associate professor for health policy and management at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and Terry Rosell, the Rosemary Flanigan Chair at the Center for Practical Bioethics, address the question:
