Mission Statement
Patients, families, surrogates and providers are faced with difficult decisions in health care today. Many of these decisions, in addition to having medical, nursing, legal, psychological, religious, and social service dimensions, are value laden and, as such, raise value conflicts or uncertainties. In recognition of this, The MetroHealth System has established the Medical Ethics Committee whose mission is to assist those involved with difficult clinical decision making in sorting through the ethical aspects of those decisions.
Ethics Committee Members
Mark Aulisio, PhD - Chair - mark.aulisio@case.edu
Marcia Bailey, RN, MSN- Secretary - mbailey@metrohealth.org
Estelle Argie-Hawley, M.Ed., CCLS- eahawley@metrohealth.org
Craig Bates, MD - cbates@metrohealth.org
Robert Cohn, MD - rcohn@metrohealth.org
Alfred Connors, MD - aconnors@metrohealth.org
Jonathan Dunn, MD - jdunn@metrohealth.org
Elise Ellick - eellick@metrohealth.org
Richard Fratianne, MD - rfratianne@metrohealth.org
Peter Greco, MD - pgreco@metrohealth.org
Amer Khiyami, MD - akhiyami@metrohealth.org
Mary Legerski, RN, JD - mlegerski@metrohealth.org
Mark Lehman, LISW, CCDC III - mlehman@metrohealth.org
Jessica Moore, DHCE - jxd75@case.edu
Elizabeth O’Toole, MD - elizabeth.otoole@case.edu
Dan Rossbach, MDiv, MA - drossbach@metrohealth.org
Dawn Alpaugh Smith, MA - dawn.a.smith@case.edu
Educational Activities
Ethics Committee Education
In 2005 an educational outreach that addressed the topic of professionalism was developed for unit specific presentations. This presentation, with area-specific case vignettes, was adapted for each area/discipline in the hospital. Hospital-wide presentations continued in several departments through-out 2006 with presentations in both “rights of conscience” and “personal disclosure/professional boundaries,” This one-hour presentation was developed to discuss the potential impact that professional boundaries might have on decision-making (patient and health care professional). The presentation included practical ways these issues can be addressed. In 2006, the presentation was added to the nursing orientation.
Other educational sessions presented to the members of the Institutional Ethics Committee included “The Ethics of Shame” to North Coast Health Ministries – Ohio Free Clinic Conference in October; “Ethical Issues in Social Work,” “Ethical Issues in Adolescent Medicine,” “Ethical Issues in Emergency Medicine,” “The Abrahamic Traditions: Common Foundations and Common Conclusions for Health Care,” “Assessing Patient Capacity,” and “The Legal and Ethical Aspects of End of Life Decision Making in Europe.”
In preparation for 2007, three members of the Medical Ethics Committee developed a presentation entitled, “Assessing Patient Competency.” This presentation is intended to help health care professionals assess patient decision-making capacity and understand the role of the patient surrogate for patients without capacity. The presentation addresses the conditions for capacity and possible situations when capacity might need to be evaluated, as well as a discussion of next steps. This educational tool can be adapted with department-specific cases and presented to a variety of audiences.
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