Friday marked the first time Boston College hosted an all-day leadership and ethics conference specifically designed for clinicians and students in nursing. The conference, titled "Professional Responsibility: Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Leadership in Clinical Ethics," invited experienced nurses, social workers, pre-professionals, undergrads, and grad students to attend the series of lectures and small group discussions.
Along with the Connell School of Nursing, other conference coordinators included Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and BC's Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics. In past years, other similar conferences have been held around Boston and other major cities. With much planning and collaboration with local hospitals and other University departments, CSON successfully introduced the conference to BC's campus.
This year's conference was the biggest one to date, bringing in over 160 attendees and extending the list of the day's events. With each consecutive year, coordinators try to redefine the content to keep it relevant. As a result, its popularity has only increased.
"It is designed to increase clinicians' ability to make ethical decisions from any dilemmas that arise," said Pam Grace, head coordinator and associate professor in CSON of the conference's overall purpose. Ideally, Grace and other coordinators are hoping to thoroughly educate enough people on ethical issues so as to create a web of specialists on every level of hospital staff that can aid in any controversies that may appear.
Faculty and staff at BC decided to bring the conference on campus due to a recent initiative at the University to increase ethical leadership. Prior to the conference, coordinators decided on basic goals that they wished to achieve during the day-long event series.
Such goals included defining an appropriate relationship between professionals and patients, creating equal collaboration between all those interested in a patient's health, and preparing health care professionals to be resourceful in the midst of ethical problems.
Early in the morning, the keynote speaker and ethicist scholar Dr. Elizabeth Peter spoke on the nature of professional responsibility. Other invited speakers touched on a variety of different ethical principles and the possible fields of health care in which they can appear. The overarching theme of the lectures was to give attendees a more comprehensive education on how to deal with dilemmas and then problem-solve.
One particularly distinctive feature of the conference occurred after lunch when members broke off into small groups for specific case analysis and issues discussions. Each group was given a mock-ethical dilemma, and an hour to discuss which methods they would employ to solve it. The day finished with a round discussion consisting of four health care professional panelists touching on interdisciplinary ethics.
The success of the conference called for extensive planning from BC faculty and other coordinators.
"It consisted of a lot of planning. One of the things we did was make a resource booklet for each attending member," said Grace. Each thick and neatly bound book consisted of not only a summary of the ethical principles taught during the day, but a large reference section that can aid anyone in potential issues that emerge. Coordinators wanted to arm each attendee with the necessary information to handle problems in real-life situations.
Also, the entire conference was a cross-collaboration between different departments of BC and different hospitals across the Boston area. A large amount of effort was put into the protocol of earning approval from many locations and levels of authority that had demands for the workings of the conference.
The planning and production proved to be extremely successful. Members enjoyed the day-long event and it was a great way to build connections between health care professionals, professors, and students.
In a concise summary of the conference's goals and accomplishments, Grace hoped the conference would prove beneficial to nurses. "We just wanted to help nurses to be more effective," said Grace.
Be the first to comment on this article!