Indiana University Health Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics

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Fellowship

The Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics at Indiana University Health sponsors a nine-month, part time fellowship aimed at training health care professionals in clinical ethics, including ethics consultation, hospital ethics committee work, and ethics research. Graduates become capable members of the ethics community, resources for their colleagues facing ethical challenges in patient care, and have the potential to become leaders in the field of medical ethics.

The target audience for the fellowship includes physicians, nurses, chaplains, and social workers. Other members of the community (e.g. attorneys or members of administrative staffs) may also apply.

Application to the fellowship is competitive. The application process includes submission of a written application (which includes several brief narrative essays), a letter of support from the applicant’s immediate supervisor, one letter of recommendation, and interviews with Fairbanks Center staff. The application may be submitted electronically or on paper.

The application submission deadline is April 30, 2012. Notification of selected candidates will take place no sooner than July 1, 2012.

The Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics will grant certificates of completion to Fellows successfully completing the nine-month fellowship. Fellows will be evaluated on participation in seminars and meetings, performance in ethics consultation under supervision, and completion of a scholarly project.

Fellowship Activities

The fellowship requires one dedicated day per week (Wednesdays) for the academic year (8/29/12 through 5/22/13) plus additional time for completion of reading assignments and the fellowship project. IU Health employees may continue full time employment at their regular jobs with the permission of their unit managers. Through special arrangements with Nursing, Social Work, and Chaplaincy department leaders, fellows may be permitted release time from normal work assignments to participate in fellowship activities. For others, individual arrangements will be coordinated.

The core activities of the fellowship include:

• A Core Curriculum focused on key areas of clinical ethics, consisting of assigned reading and weekly seminar discussions with Fairbanks Center staff and noted content experts which occur over the nine-month fellowship
• The Fairbanks Ethics Lecture Series, focused on central concepts and practical topics in clinical ethics
• Participation in the IU Health Ethics Consultation Sub-Committee activities, including attendance at the sub-committee’s twice-monthly meetings and participation in bedside consultations. Fellows take call with the on-call ethics consultants 1-2 months.
• Participation as observers in monthly IU Health Ethics Committee meetings
• Attendance, when possible, at other ethics meetings or presentations (e.g. FCME Unit-Based Ethics Conversations)
• Interactions with an ethics Mentor or Mentors who will provide guidance in independent projects and activities for each Fellow
• Completion of a “scholarly project,” an independent ethics research, educational, or quality improvement project. This will be designed and completed with guidance from Fairbanks Center faculty and staff. Examples of this might include research projects, hospital policy development, projects aimed at improving ethical aspects of staff relations, etc.

Current and Previous Fellows’ Projects

• Michael Graham, MD A literature review addressing ethical issues involved in palliative sedation (sedation at the end of life to relieve intractable suffering).
• Robin Bandy, JD, MA Medical decision-making during the guardianship process for incapacitated, hospitalized adults: a descriptive cohort study
• Gabriel Bosslet, MD A mail survey of physicians and medical students regarding their utilization of online social networking sites and their attitudes regarding physician-patient interactions through these sites.
• Nancy Flamme, MSW A mail survey study of liver transplant clinicians examining the influence of psychosocial evaluation on listing status of liver transplant candidates.
• Maureen Hancock, MSN, PNA Evaluating and managing moral distress in ICU nurses
• Clara Monroe RN, BSN Nurses’ experiences with ethics consultation, as described through structured, recorded interviews
• Zeynep Salih, MD Development of an ethics curriculum for neonatology fellows
• Kristin Strawhun, MD A review of brain death and drafting of a Brain Death Policy for Indiana University Health (formerly Clarian Health Partners).
• Maggie Uhrich, BSN, RN, OCN Ethical dilemmas in prognostic communication in oncology nurses: A mail survey study of Oncology Nursing Society members
• Carla Zachodni, RN, BSN A review of brain death policies and determination processes in US hospitals