• Redefining Non-Beneficial and Futile Treatment: Insights from Dr. Peter DePergola
    Dec 14 2024

    In this episode, Tyler and Devan are joined by Dr. Peter DePergola to explore policies addressing non-beneficial treatment requests, medical futility, and inappropriate treatment demands. Dr. DePergola, the Shaughness Family Chair for the Study of the Humanities at Elms College, is an Associate Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities with joint appointments in Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Biomedical Sciences. He also serves as Director of the Undergraduate and Graduate Bioethics and Medical Humanities Programs and Executive Director of the Saint Augustine Center for Ethics, Religion, and Culture.

    Dr. DePergola shares insights from his recent policy revision work, focusing on refining the concepts and language surrounding non-beneficial treatment, futility, and related ethical challenges in medical decision-making.

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    Less than 1 minute
  • Success Story of Complex Cases Committees
    Nov 15 2024
    In this Episode, Hospital President Dan Carey, Chief Medical Officer Barbara Ducatman, and Clinical Ethicist Jason Wasserman at Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan join Tyler and Devan to discuss their action-oriented, complex case committee work and its success. Transcript0:01 Welcome to this episode of Bioethics for the People, the most popular bioethics podcast on the planet according to Grandma Nancy.I'm joined by my Co host Doctor Devin Stahl, who dutifully completes the same 5 New York Times puzzles every single day. 0:18 And I'm joined by my Co host Doctor Tyler Gibb, who if he weren't here right now, would probably be golfing.Devin, welcome to another episode of Bioethics for the People podcast.Always my favorite time of the week, Tyler.So we're continuing our series of episodes about success stories in clinical ethics and we've got a, we've got a good one today. 0:42 OK, I'm excited.I've actually see multiple people on the Zoom today, not just one person.So this must be a Tripoli successful story.Yeah, well, it's one of our very, very few repeat guests on the podcast.So we've got Doctor Jason Wasserman from Oakland University, William Beaumont School of Medicine, who also works in clinical ethics with the Corwell Hospital system, which recently changed its name. 1:09 And I don't remember the new name.I apologize.Jason, tell us who you are again.Yeah, So Jason Wasserman, I do.I'm a faculty member in the School of Medicine at Oakland University, William Beaumont School of Medicine and do clinical ethics consultation for Corwell Health East, but primarily at Corwell Health William Beaumont University Hospital where my two favorite administrators of all time work. 1:33 And when you, when you guys put a call out for bioethics success stories, it, it struck me that what the relationship that we've been able to build in clinical ethics with our administration at the hospital constitutes not only a success story, but might be something instructive for other people out there doing clinical bioethics and working through their, their systems to kind of build support and change culture. 2:02 And I think we've, we've made strides in that.We have, you know, certainly more that we want to accomplish, but we've made a lot of strides.And it really owes to my MY2 colleagues here, Barbara Ducketman and Dan Carey, and I'll let them introduce themselves.Great.Hi.I'm Barbara Ducketman, and I'm the vice president for medical affairs at Caldwell Health William Beaumont University Hospital. 2:25 Hello, I am Dan Carey.I'm the president here at Corwell Health William Beaumont University Hospital, and I'm also a faculty member at Oakland University of William Beaumont School of Medicine.Awesome.And Jason, I know you've been there for a number of years, since the, almost the very beginning of the, the medical school there at Oakland. 2:45 And just recently went through a transition, like I said, the, the hospital system was acquired by a different hospital system.And that poses a lot of maybe instability, uncertainty within a clinical ethics consultation system because so much of what we do is not at the behest of, but maybe with the, I don't know, with the blessing of administration, right? 3:10 Because there are easy, easy shortcuts in order to meet their clinical ethics regulatory requirements.And I think it takes a special system, takes special ethicists to be able to work together and able to to build a clinical ethics practice that not only serves the patients, but is well supported and integrated throughout the system. 3:32 So tell us, tell us what you guys are doing out there.Well, so, yeah, let me, I'll start with a little bit of history.Right at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, there were huge financial pressures on the on the system.And the former CEO and CMO decided to sort of decentralize the ethics service at what was then Beaumont Health. 3:54 And everything kind of got pushed to the chief medical officers at the individual hospitals.They were told to sort of figure out an ethics process at your different hospital by way of, you know, cutting costs and all that.And that's how Barbara, who was the chief medical officer at the flagship hospital in Royal Oak, ended up sort of reaching out to us. 4:17 And I mean, I think there's a, there's a lot of credit owed there because not every CMO at every hospital did so there.There were different ways in which they rebuilt ethics at each of these different places.But I think we've been particularly successful.So I might, you know, not to take over the sort of moderating and hosting duties from Tyler and Devin here. 4:40 But I might ask Barbara, you know, just to talk a little bit about why she even reached out to us as in, in, in light of the many other options that you might have had.Well, this was during the pandemic, actually during the first wave of the pandemic. 4:56 And it was kind of ...
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    32 mins
  • Getting Clear on DNR Order with Stephanie Van Slyke
    Nov 7 2024
    In this episode, Stephanie Van Slyke helps us to understand DNR orders and her success in helping clinical staff understand what they mean.
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    42 mins
  • STAT Ethics Education with Steven Squires
    Oct 24 2024
    In this episode Steven Squires describes an intervention into ethics education that has taken off!
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    46 mins
  • Allocating Scarce Resources with Dr. Jennifer Bell
    Oct 17 2024
    In this episode we discuss another success story with Dr. Jennifer Bell who helped her medical center think about how to ration scarce CAR-T Cell cancer treatments. Transcript 0:00 Welcome to this episode of Bioethics for the People, the most popular bioethics podcast on the planet according to Grandma Nancy.I'm joined by my Co host Doctor Devin Stahl, who dutifully completes the same 5 New York Times puzzles every single day. 0:17 And I'm joined by my Co host Doctor Tyler Gibb, who if he weren't here right now, would probably be golfing.All right, Tyler, so we have another success story to share today from a fellow Canadian.Yes, I love Canadians, of all the nationalities, they're my favorite. 0:37 Have you ever, I don't think you even talked about this in the podcast we did about you, Tyler, is that you're Canadian?Well, kind of Canadian.I was born there.I can have dual citizenship if I ever fill out the paperwork.Oh, you've never filled out the paperwork?No, it's like $125.00 fee and I've never never actually filled it out, but. 0:55 That says something about your like extreme optimism about our political situation that you've never like in the back of your mind, Go said maybe Canada might not be such a bad choice for me.Yeah, maybe this year will be the difference maker though.We'll see.OK, so we've got a Canadian with us. 1:10 Well, I'm actually dual citizen.Yes, dual citizens are the best.I grew up in Georgia and now I live in Toronto, so.All right, so we've got Jennifer Bell with us, who's a senior bioethicist up north of the border, and we'll let her introduce herself. 1:27 Yeah, well, I I already told you more about me than I think I tell the average person.So I am.I won't start from birth.I'm currently a senior bioethicist in Toronto, ON and Director of Bioethics Research.I'm at the University Health Network and I'm affiliated with the University of Toronto. 1:47 Very cool.So, Jen, what does your day-to-day look like?Well, I mean, actually it's changed a little bit because I just was awarded a fellowship actually in AI and compassionate healthcare, but previous to that, which I just started a couple of weeks ago.So I've been seconded to that and it's a research fellowship, but, but prior to that my, my day was very clinically oriented. 2:10 I mean, I provide clinical, organizational research and policy and education ethics across our organization.I primarily support Princess Margaret, which is our cancer hospital.But organizationally, I do a lot of work for the entire organization as it goes. 2:28 So, you know, day-to-day it's, I mean, as those of you who work in healthcare settings and our ethicists there and you're sort of beholden to what kinds of consults and questions come up and you can never really anticipate what those might be.So that's sort of exciting, but also a bit daunting because you know, you're called on to be sort of have knowledge about all these various areas. 2:51 But it's sort of a generalist in a sense, at this hospital at least, because I, again, serve a larger population than just the cancer system.So it could look very different depending on the day.But generally, I will be responding to a clinical consult, a bedside consult. 3:09 Maybe there's a policy coming through that needs an ethics perspective.Right now, we're in the midst of creating sort of AI protocols and procedures.And so there's a lot of opportunity there for ethics input on that.So, I mean, it really varies, yeah.And I know that Tyler has experience with this too, but I've been part of hospital systems that get like 1 consult a year, and then I've been part of ones that get more like 1 consult a day. 3:36 My guess is you're getting even more than that.So what is your typical load like?How often are you being called to consult?Yeah.Well, I should preface this.I'm not a sole bioethicist working in this network.Actually one of five others.So there's six of us.We're not all full time. 3:52 So me in particular, I have 3 days that I devote to practicing ethics in the healthcare in our, in our healthcare network, but I'm also paid to do research.I have a nice dual role, which is it's hard to come by, at least in Canada. 4:08 I don't know how frequent you have these opportunities in the States, but so my day, my week is actually split into normally it's changed a bit now because I've started this fellowship, but before this it was three days clinical organizational research ethics practice and then two days I had devoted to actually conducting research and bioethics. 4:28 I would say that's incredibly unusual.That is a lot of time for research.That is really cool.Yeah, yeah.And it's not grant funded either.So it's it is a permanent sort of part time research position, a full position in its entirety, but the research side is actually well as guaranteed as you can be. 4:47 That's cool.One of the topics that we're covering on this kind of series group of episodes is success ...
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    46 mins
  • The Dr. Gibb Episode
    Oct 10 2024
    In this episode we do a deep dive into the work and life of our co-host Dr. Tyler Gibb
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    36 mins
  • The Dr. Stahl Episode
    Sep 26 2024

    You asked for it, so here it is… the “Who is Dr. Stahl” episode. We do a deep dive into the path that brought Devan to where she is today.

    How did she first get interested in Bioethics? Who were some of her most influential mentors? What is she currently working on?

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    51 mins
  • Curbing Violence in Health Care: Featuring Dr. Tim Lahey
    Sep 19 2024
    In this episode Dr. Tim Lahey describes how he helped his institution curb violence against health care professionals.
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    46 mins