SYNOPSIS

“The nurses are upset!” But they are not the only ones, and maybe being upset is ethically important. In fact, soothing things down might not be the right response….

Ethical challenges and dilemmas don’t happen in a vacuum. In the clinical setting, they very frequently play out in a context of heightened emotions, for the patient, the family and also for the clinical staff. In this presentation, I will focus on the

moral emotions. Drawing on clinical narratives, I will identify feelings that arise specifically when something ethically important is at stake. The most well-known of these is moral distress, which the distress felt by a person who feels forced to do something which he or she believes wrong, or is unable to do what he or she believes to be right. This is importantly different from the distress we feel when a tragedy unfolds in front of us. I will also discuss moral regret, moral residue and moral confusion. All of these emotions arise because ethical principles are not just concepts which people learn, they are values which people care about. It is vital to understand the nuances of these emotions, and to differentiate between them, in order to give them an appropriate place.

SPEAKER

A/Prof Lynn Gillam PhD BA(Hons) MA(Oxon) an ethicist with particular interests in paediatric clinical ethics, research ethics and ethics education. Lynn is the Clinical Ethicist and Academic Director of the Children’s Bioethics Centre at The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne. Lynn is also Associate Professor in Health Ethics in the School of Population Health at The University of Melbourne.

Lynn’s presentation forms part of the 6th National Paediatric Bioethics Conference.