Reference no: EM133177777

You are the chair of the Ethics Committee at Saint Jasper's regional, a Regional Hospital with a growing research program. Your Ethics Committee fills four major roles for the hospital; drafting ethics policy for the entire institution, organizing ethics, education, reviewing, potential conflicts of interest with the industry that physicians have declared, and mediating on the approximately 15 ethics consultation cases that come before the committee. Each year, your committee is made up of seven members. An orthopedic surgeon, a heart surgeon, a trauma nurse, an internal medicine doctor who is the only female, a hospital chaplain, an OBGYN, and a nurse anesthetist. The departing member of the Ethics Committee is the female member, the internal medicine doctor. She had served on the committee for five years., and was very well regarded for her advocacy of patient rights and her ability to work well with others, especially her respect for people whose views are different from her own. She also had prior Ethics Committee experience on another institution and had taken several courses in clinical ethics in the past.

Doctor Stevens is a 42 year old medical Doctor Who has recently been recruited to the hospital to do industry funded heart catheter research. He was recruited from a high-ranking and famous academic hospital and has served on the IRB in the past period. He is new to living in the area and has a young. Family. He practices Judaism and has expressed a strong interest in learning more about medical ethics. He is only interested in serving for one or two years and he is more interested in policy work than teaching. He works in the clinic one day per week and the rest of the time this spent on research.

Doctor Drydek is a 28 year old medical resident. He says that he has very strong ethical values. Recently he conscientiously refused to take part in the withdrawal of life support from an elderly cancer patient because he is morally opposed to the withdrawal of care that is not futile. He has expressed some disdain for others in his department who disagree with his views. He has some experience serving on committees in the past, he has agreed to serve on the committee for several years and has an interest in teaching. He has taken a Bioethics Masters program.

Ms. Hutchins was a social worker in the pediatric ward for 20 years, but she retired about eight years ago, and began pursuing a Masters degree in public health. When asked about her interests, she has said that she has a lot of opinions and emotions about what goes on in the pediatric unit, and for this reason would happily serve on the Ethics Committee. She has no prior ethics experience and does not practice any religion. She is friendly with one of the current committee members and she's very actively involved in the community, particularly in political groups. She's indicated that she is interested in serving because it will look good on a resume when she applies to public health jobs.

Which member you will recommend to serve on your ethics committee and defend your choice. Assess pros and cons, as well as other features of the candidate that were not explicitly addressed as positive or negative. Which characteristics are most important or should be prioritized in an ethics committee member and why?