PubMed Health⌕ Search

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Religious Approach”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,531 records · Page 85Linked to original sources
PubMed1993

Mercy: an insufficient motive for euthanasia. Catholic ethical tradition requires that we temper our motives with reason and care before acting.

Some experts argue that acts of assisted suicide and euthanasia are ethically appropriate because they are merciful. Compelling though it is, this argument is not sufficient for determining the morality of these acts. The ethical tradition that calls for mercy has never suggested that mercy is, by itself, a sufficient criterion for determining an act's moral appropriateness. Human motives are rarely, if ever, pure and objective. For that reason, our ethical tradition has insisted on tempering motives with reason and care. The criteria for determining when it is merciful to assist in another's suicide or engage in an act of euthanasia are, for all practical purposes, impossible to define. Commonly writers refer to a person's hopeless condition to justify the merciful response of assisted suicide or euthanasia. But unless we can agree on whether hopelessness is an objective or subjective reality, and until the criteria to define this reality are evident, it is difficult to see how assisted suicide or euthanasia can be a careful and reasoned expression of mercy. Only by examining one's intention can one judge whether an act that may appear to be merciful in a hopeless situation is appropriate. "Intention" refers to the reasoned decision or judgment one makes about a goal and the means used to achieve that goal. Even if we cannot control our emotional response (our motives) in a particular situation, we can control our judgment (our intentions). Within our moral tradition, we can be sure we are being merciful in a careful and reasoned way when we intend to protect and promote the good of life.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Altruism↗
PubMed1993

Learning to pay attention. An ethics study group refocuses on issues affecting long-term care residents' daily lives.

In 1991 the Sisters of Charity Healthcare Systems (SCHCS), Cincinnati, established an ethics study group for its long-term care facilities. The group was originally organized to address end-of-life treatment decisions, but it soon found that the daily lives of people by and for whom such decisions would be made were worthy of attention in their own right. Autonomy had been a topic of group discussions early on. Once reinterpreted in the context of long-term care, it became the pivotal value for the group. One key to the group's progress was identifying intrinsic and extrinsic factors that distract care givers' attention from issues of concern to residents. Members found that state and federal regulations, as well as constraints on medical treatment by payers such as Medicare and Medicaid, often ignore the human dimension in terms of which the elderly's needs and preferences can be framed. Rigidly defined roles and routines also blunt care givers' sensitivity to residents' concerns. The group is currently developing a program of in-service ethics education and training. Designed in four modules, the program will focus on the following topics: protecting and enhancing resident rights, staff issues and professionalism, talking about death and dying, and staff-physician issues.

Aged↗
PubMed1994

Changing the way we care for the dying.

Systemic healthcare reform provides an opportunity to make care of the dying more humane, less technology based. Dying persons should neither be ignored when technologies prove futile nor be handed over too hastily to professional and institutional care. Perhaps dying should be reclaimed and, where possible, taken back into the home, family, and community. Caring appropriately for dying persons is made difficult today by a number of factors. Americans' death-denying attitudes drive much of what healthcare professionals do in both acute and long-term care settings. Frequently, the emphasis is on curative and rescue interventions to the neglect of all else. Finally, the U.S. family has become increasingly unable or unwilling to care for a dying family member at home. The potential for significant reform of the healthcare system may change the way care is rendered to dying persons. Catholic healthcare providers should be leaders in reshaping the way dying persons are cared for. First, ethics committees should formulate, promulgate, and implement policies delineating the appropriate use of life-sustaining interventions. Second, long-term care givers need to overcome the troubling tendency to transfer dying persons to acute care facilities when death is imminent. Third, hospice services should be available and their use encouraged. Finally, representatives from Catholic healthcare should work with parishes to encourage the faith community to share in the responsibility of providing home care for dying persons.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed1994

Ministering to persons who face death. Practical guidance for care givers of persons making end-of-life treatment decisions.

It is time care givers learn how to minister effectively and sensitively to those making end-of-life treatment decisions. To do so, care givers need to be aware of the various meanings death and dying hold. Culture, religion, past experiences with death and dying, and current situations can all influence the way persons perceive death and dying. Sensitivity to who the patient and family are, to how they perceive the disease or illness, and to how this perception influences their ability to achieve their life goals is a critical care-giving skill. Sensitivity, however, need not result in value neutrality or tolerance. Care givers should not be mindless executors of patient or family demands. Care givers must learn to talk honestly with patients and families about how a particular disease is most likely to progress and about the types of decisions they are likely to need to make. And then care givers need to present options, remaining sensitive to the patients' beliefs, values, and interests. Persons who care for the dying will face three types of patients, who will require different types of responses. The three types are patients who welcome death, patients who accept death, and patients who fight death. For all types of patients, care givers must keep the care patient centered and responsive to patients' priorities; facilitate informed decision making; promote communication among the patient, family, and healthcare team; support autonomous decision making; mediate conflicts; and offer spiritual counseling.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed1994

The case. Bad care, good care, and spiritual preservation.

A cancer patient learning to walk again finds that his relationships with his two physical therapists affect his recovery. One woman gives hope as well as instruction. He advises healers to meet their patients as equals, "to take down as many barriers as they can, give away as many distancing privileges as possible."

Communication↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Character witness. Walking the talk on euthanasia.

Our response to the euthanasia movement brings us to the depths of moral character and spirituality. Character bears witness to the true significance of our Catholic convictions about the dignity of persons, the value of life, our dependence on God, and our interdependence on one another. To be credible players in public debates on euthanasia and assisted suicide, we have to bear convincing witness, personally and corporately, to the ways we care first for ourselves and for those who are not as fortunate as we--the sick, the elderly, the indigent, and the dying. Who we will be in the face of death will have a lot to do with what we have come to believe about life, with the values we have upheld, with the attitudes we have taken, and with the habits of thought and behavior we have formed. So we need not be victims of what dying has in store for us. Rather, we can engage our dying by developing those habits of the heart which will make a difference in the way we adapt to unwanted circumstances and endure what we cannot change. We cannot develop strength of character if we are not nurtured by a community of character. In addition to personal character, we also need to be a community that gives witness to those fundamental religious and moral convictions which shape our living and dying in ways that would make euthanasia unthinkable.

Catholicism↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The moral case against euthanasia. Catholics must articulate persuasive arguments to counter the cultural rush toward assisted suicide.

Catholics who adhere to a consistent ethic of life are going to face tougher opposition as they struggle to defend society's most vulnerable members. The major ethical contention will concern the ethics of dying. Unfortunately, there have not been well-articulated moral arguments to counter society's rush toward physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Catholics must articulate a persuasive ethical ideal for dying a truly good death. It is crucial to achieve a balance: between valuing individual autonomy and protecting the common good; between affirming the goodness of life and accepting death as a reality of the life cycle. Another challenging piece of the moral argument lies in convincing people that the means and processes used to achieve a goal are rarely neutral. Another serious problem with permitting the killing of self or others is that one cannot ever be certain of the agent's motivation. And when an individual's subjective determination of a need to choose death is given ultimate validity, there is no way to call a halt. If medical mercy killing becomes acceptable, social pressure can mount for an ill person to ask for death to relieve the family burdens. Maintaining an absolute prohibition against actively taking a human life--self or other, with or without consent, dying or not--is necessary to protect human communal bonds.

Catholicism↗
PubMed1995

Healthcare and social responsibility. The revised directives clarify the Catholic position.

The Catholic Church participates in the U.S. healthcare system by reason of its contribution to the common good of society. To facilitate this, the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services set forth certain normative principles. Catholic healthcare is dedicated to promoting human dignity and the sacredness of life; it has an "option for the poor"; it seeks the common good, cooperating with other providers toward that end; it prohibits abortion, in vitro fertilization, contraceptive sterilization, and assisted suicide procedures in free-standing Catholic healthcare institutions. This article focuses on the directives in Parts 1 and 6 of the ERD. Directive 2 calls for mutual respect among care givers. Directive 3 discusses ways to care for people "at the margins of society." Directive 4 describes the medical research permitted in Catholic facilities, and Directives 5 and 9 suggest how such facilities can best perpetuate their Catholic identity. Directive 7 mandates that Catholic facilities treat employees justly. Directive 8 says that such facilities must observe canon law in transferring sponsorship or in founding, closing, or selling an institution. Directive 68 suggests that the bishop be involved in a proposed partnership that may infringe upon Catholic identity. Directive 70 urges Catholic facilities to avoid scandal, and Directive 69 warns that some forms of cooperation are unethical even when scandal is not present.

Aborted Fetus↗
PubMed1995

An educational response to assisted suicide. Catholic systems reach out to advance compassionate care of the dying.

The future of "The Oregon Death with Dignity Act" is uncertain since a preliminary injunction blocking the law's enactment has been granted. Still, three Catholic healthcare systems in the Pacific Northwest are quite clear about their commitment to providing optimal care to persons at the end of life. Bellevue, WA-based PeaceHealth; Seattle-based Sisters of Providence Health System; and Aston, PA-based Franciscan Health System have formed the Committee on Care of the Dying of the Franciscan, PeaceHealth, and Providence Health Systems. The three organizations have collaborated to develop and offer comprehensive educational outreach on compassionate care of the dying throughout Oregon. Twenty system representatives met in Portland, OR, in January 1995 and developed a vision statement, "Care at the End of Life." In addition, a steering committee of 12 representatives has identified the goals of the Committee on Care of the Dying. The steering committee has also identified seven "Organizational Commitments and Common Elements" to ensure quality and excellence in compassionate care of the dying. Recently, the Daughters of Charity National Health System, the Carondelet Health System, and the Catholic Health Association-all based in St. Louis-have joined this collaborative effort to educate healthcare providers and the public.

Catholicism↗