Are Clinical Ethicists Looking in Wrong Directions?

Clinical ethicists are those who perform ethics consultations regarding patient care and who also may teach and write about a host of issues that pertain to that care.  These ethicists are often physicians but also may be philosophers, social workers, ministers, lawyers, nurses and other occupations but whatever their primary professions, doing ethics they tend to follow some consensus often developed amongst themselves to explain and define what is happening and what is ethical.  Issues that are considered are often as basic and as important in clinical ethics decision-making such as "what is life" and "what is death" which are, for example, related to terminating life support and organ procurement.  It may be that those ethicists who originate concepts which others will consider to follow develop explanations and decisions based on theory and limited, perhaps isolated experiences, rather than in the direction of the common everyday experience of the meaning and consequences of life and death.  Are clinical ethicists actually looking for and presenting answers to society in the wrong direction?  Do you think what you read and hear from ethicists really represent the life which you are experiencing? I thought an excellent presentation of this topic was that written to a bioethics listserv today by Steven Miles MD, who is a professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of  Minnesota and has written to this blog in the past.  I have re...
Source: Bioethics Discussion Blog - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs