Adventist Bioethics
www.adventistbioethics.org
Imagine if you were asked:
I know my mother is really sick but why can’t the doctors just keep her on the ventilator? Why are they trying to kill her? Our state has legalized physician aid in dying, so why doesn’t your hospital allow this practice? I would like to offer gene therapy to patients as a service in my clinical practice. Can I have the support of this institution? I heard that your hospital allows surgeons to perform gender reassignment surgery. Is this true? How would your hospital system respond? More than ever, Adventist-affiliated hospitals are called to address complex ethical issues in ways that preserve organizational integrity and alignment with the mission of the Adventist church. In the current environment, significant benefits can be achieved from coordination among hospitals and communication between the Adventist church and the healthcare systems.
Introducing the Adventist Bioethics Consortium (ABC), an association for hospitals affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist church. The ABC will help member hospitals share knowledge, advance scholarship and enhance ethical leadership. It will also serve as the link between the Adventist church’s leadership for health ministries and Adventist-affiliated hospitals, resulting in more consistent messages regarding state-of-the-art care, compassionate healing and ethical responsibility. 1
Wisdom at Your Fingertips The Adventist Bioethics Consortium web portal will allow you to conveniently and quickly access information on bioethical issues. With a secure login, you will be able to do the following: • Retrieve information specific to the Adventist church, such as official statements and guidelines. • Study existing policies from member hospitals on topics such as pregnancy termination, physician aid in dying and requests for potentially inappropriate therapy. • Solicit expert opinions on difficult bioethical questions. • Collaborate on research with member institutions.
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Guidance You Can Trust How does your hospital provide continuing education in bioethics for clinicians and hospital administrators? The ABC can help to meet this need with the following: • Online Clinical Ethics course for self-directed learning covering a broad range of clinical ethics issues, such as surrogate decision‑making capacity, clinical ethics consultations, and withdrawing / withholding life sustaining treatments. • Hour-long, live webinars covering a single topic conducted quarterly by experts in clinical ethics. • Annual Adventist Bioethics Conference providing access to national and international leaders in bioethics. • Clinical Ethics Intensive, an in-person course, offered every two years, taught by national leaders in clinical ethics over three days, covering practical and philosophical aspects of clinical ethics. • Continuing education credit in various disciplines offered by Loma Linda University. 5
Adventist Bioethics Collaboration
There is strength through mutual learning and collaboration, and member hospitals of the ABC will have access to a network of administrators and clinicians interested in finding innovative solutions to common bioethical questions. The ABC will provide the following: • Annual Adventist Bioethics Conference connecting clinicians, ethicists, church leaders and healthcare administrators with national and international thought leaders in the field of bioethics. • Facilitate interest groups (e.g. palliative care, pediatrics, trainee education, etc.) within the web portal to connect clinicians and healthcare administrators who are interested in specific issues for research and learning. • Host consortium wide conference calls as needed if an ethical issue of national importance creates the need for a coordinated response from Adventist-affiliated hospitals. 6
Consortium -
Across the Nation and Beyond
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Coordinated by the Center for Christian Bioethics at Loma Linda University Founded in 1984, the Center for Christian Bioethics (CCB) at Loma Linda University (LLU) is one of the longest-serving bioethics centers in the country. Throughout its history, the CCB has produced scholarly work in bioethics from a Christian perspective with a particular emphasis on the Seventh-day Adventist tradition. The CCB’s work has been facilitated by collaborative relationships with Loma Linda University’s Schools of Religion and Medicine, as well as with the multiple medical facilities that now comprise Loma Linda University Health (LLUH). LLUHMKTG#CCB-206-17/0317/50
www.adventistbioethics.org
www.adventistbioethics.org