New guidance for healthcare ethics teaching to decrease knowledge gaps and strengthen capacities
Clinical ethics education helps healthcare staff deal with ethically challenging cases and situations.
All work, clinical and administrative, in the healthcare sector should be permeated by healthcare ethics. But teaching differs between universities, and so do requirements for who is eligible to conduct it.
Pernilla Pergert is associate professor of paediatric care science with a special focus on clinical ethics.
The Swedish Society of Nursing and Swedish Society of Medicine have now produced a guidance document with goal descriptions and recommendations for education in clinical ethics. The recommendations include, among other things, national consensus on learning objectives, strengthened continuing education in clinical ethics, and the creation of a national and interprofessional network for those who teach it.
“Healthcare ethics needs to be a guiding principle throughout all education of healthcare staff, with a focus on reflecting about ethically challenging cases and situations. This is a joint effort towards national and interprofessional consensus on the goals for teaching clinical ethics,” says Pernilla Pergert.
Pernilla Pergert is associate professor of paediatric care science with a special focus on clinical ethics, senior lecturer in caring science with a focus on care ethics at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics, and member of the ethics committee of the Swedish Society of Nursing.
Pernilla Pergert teaches ethics at the nursing and specialist nursing programmes at Uppsala University and has been involved in developing the recommendations. Niklas Juth, who is professor of clinical medical ethics at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and teaches the subject to students at the Uppsala University medical programme, took part on the development in his role as member of the Swedish Society of Medicine’s delegation for medical ethics.
By Anna Holm Bodin