Online Education for Nurses and Other Healthcare Professionals

Weaving Ethics Into Patient Care: A Model for Dealing with Complex Issues at the End of Life

The goal of this course is to provide information about current end-of-life issues across settings and to demonstrate a model for analyzing patient care situations and guiding professional choices and perspectives. Topics focus on an expanding range of end-of-life choices for patients, working with non-family surrogate guardians, cultural contexts at the end of life, and skills for initiating conversations about dying and end-of-life choices with patients. Case studies are used to illustrate and teach applications of a four-step method (the Jonsen four-quadrant approach) for analyzing challenging situations. Teaching methods include lecture, case study analysis, and discussion. This course was recorded in July 2010 at a conference for health care professionals provided by the University of Washington School of Nursing.

Course Objectives
After taking this course, you will be better able to:

1. Describe a four-step method (Jonsen model ’four-quadrant approach’) for ethics case analysis of patient care and treatment choices.
2. Describe the expanding range of options for treatment, care, and dying as people approach the end of life.
3. Discuss the roles and responsibilities of non-family surrogates.
4. Describe strategies for adapting care to the cultural context of choices at the end of life.
5. Demonstrate strategies for initiating conversations and communicating with patients about treatment options and choices along the end-of-life continuum.