Tag: Ethics

On (Over) Exposure

 

Version 2A few weeks ago I was asked to participate in a University of Washington Health Sciences fall kick-off event focusing on homelessness and health. This is, of course, where I work, and I was being asked specifically because they chose my medical memoir,  Catching Homelessness, as the Health Sciences Common Book for Academic Year 2016/17. That is both an honor and a responsibility that I take seriously. So when they asked me to do a reading from my book for the event, I agreed. Then, the event organizer asked me to read a section of my book specific to the lived experience of homelessness. I decided to read a few passages from the pivotal chapter titled “Catching Homelessness,” about the time I had spiraled into a deep, dark depression that almost took my life. “Okay, sure, I can do this,” I thought to myself as I prepared for the talk.

It is one thing to write about some of one’s rawest, excruciating, and stigmatizing life events. It’s another thing to share that writing in a book that is published and read by people, including by many of my students and colleagues. But—as I discovered—it is altogether a thing in a different league to read passages about those events out loud in a crowded university auditorium.

I managed to make it through my reading without falling apart, but the next morning I wrote in my journal: “It went okay, but was a bit odd. Almost like I was some sort of display of homelessness trotted out for the students like a case study patient in medical Grand Rounds. It was really strange to just dive headfirst into the book—rip my chest open—read a few passages from when I was hitting bottom, lying on an old cot in a storage shed.”

It felt unkind to myself and unethical when I reflected on it later. Even though I tried to give my reading some semblance of a context, it ended up just feeling as if I had done a flashing freak show. Lesson learned: trust my instincts and my professional training as a writer and not be persuaded to read anything that emotionally raw.

But it also made me reflect on why as a society we seem to demand that sort of voyeuristic display. And it drew me back to a review of some of my favorite ethical guidelines on storytelling, such as these for digital storytelling on the Story Center website under “Ethical Practice in Digital Storytelling.”  And here is an excellent overview by Kelsen Caldwell (formerly in the University of Washington School of Medicine, Health Sciences Service Learning and Advocacy group) of ethical considerations of storytelling in health advocacy work with communities:  “The Ethics of Storytelling.”

I thought through some of these complex ethical and personal issues about the process of sharing my personal story of homelessness this past summer when I made my “Homeless Professor” digital storytelling video. It utilizes an excerpt/adaptation from Catching Homelessness  and is linked here. And here is one of my favorite DS videos about homelessness by Wayne Richard: “Sofas.” 

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In addition to the DS videos linked above, here is a list of what I consider to be positive uses of narrative advocacy on health and homelessness—and yes, I am certainly biased in favor of the positive attributes of the first three:

 

 

Carrying Stories: Beyond Self Care

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Girl with Balloon, street art by Banksy. This one found at intersection of K-Road and Queen Street in Auckland, New Zealand. Photo credit: Josephine Ensign/2015.

What to do with difficult stories? Stories of refugees, victims of mass shootings, of hate crimes, of rape, of torture victims, of people dying alone and unnoticed ?  It all gets overwhelming and depressing to hear or read these sorts of difficult stories, to carry them in our hearts, to bear witness to so much suffering in the world.

Of course, for many fortunate (perhaps unfortunate?) people, there is the option of tuning out these stories, turning off the news, unplugging from any non-vacuous form of social media. Taking a break from difficult stories.

But what about all the other people who cannot or choose not to disconnect? What about people whose work involves listening to these stories on a daily basis? Frontline health care providers who work with people experiencing trauma (physical, emotional, sexual). First responders. Counselors, mental health therapists, lawyers. Human rights activists. Researchers working on social justice issues. What can they do to, if not prevent, at least deal effectively with, vicarious or secondary trauma? And for those of us who teach/train/mentor students in these roles, how do we prepare students to be able to carry difficult stories while maintaining well-being?

In a previous blog post, “Burnout and Crazy Cat Ladies,” I explored the issue of ‘too much empathy’ and of pathological altruism, linking to some of the (then/2011) current research. After writing that post and some related essays, I began incorporating a new set of in-class reflective writing prompts for soon-to-be nurses in my community/public health course. I used these in a class session I titled “Public Health Ethics, Boundaries, and Burnout.”

The first writing prompt: ‘What draws you to work in health care? What motivates or compels you to do this work?’ And then later in the class session– after discussing professional boundaries (how fuzzy they can be), individual and systems-level risk factors for burnout, and asking them to reflect on how they know when they are getting too close to a patient, a community, or an issue–I gave them the follow-up writing prompt: ‘Referring back to what you wrote about what draws you to work in health care, what do you think are the biggest potential sources of burnout for you? And what might you be able to do about them?’

Feedback from students about this in-class reflective writing exercise and the accompanying class content on boundaries and burnout, was invariably positive. Many of them said it was the first time in their almost two years of nursing education that anyone had addressed these issues. I understand that patient care, electrolyte balances, wound care and all the rest of basic nursing education takes priority, but it makes me sad that we don’t include this, to me what is fundamental and essential, content.

“…people who really don’t care are rarely vulnerable to burnout. Psychopaths don’t burn out. There are no burned-out tyrants or dictators. Only people who do care can get to this level of numbness,” Rachel Naomi Remen, MD reminds us in her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (Riverhead Books, 1996). Something to remember when we are feeling overwhelmed by difficult stories.

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Here are some excellent resources:

 

Moral Distress: Call for Stories

Moraldistress is the psychological disequilibrium when a person believes he or

Moral Compass
Moral Compass (Photo credit: psd)

she knows the right course of action to take but cannot carry out that action because of an obstacle, such as institutional constraints or lack of power. (source: Arizona Bioethics Network). Moral distress has been studied in nurses—mainly acute care nurses—since the 1980s. Although imperfectly defined and measured, moral distress appears to be strongly related to professional burnout and patient safety issues in a variety of health care professionals including doctors. (see NYT article “When Doctors and Nurses Can’t Do the Right Thing” Pauline Chen, 2-5-09).

A 2010 symposium focused on moral distress was held at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island. As reported recently by Bernadette Pauly and her colleagues in the journal Healthcare Ethics Committee Forum (2012, issue 24) interventions targeting moral distress have focused on individual coping skills of nurses and other providers. (I’ve mainly seen interventions such as deep breathing, meditation and journaling.) Most research has focused on acute care nurses and has reinforced the notion of “nurse as victim” in the hierarchical hospital system. Pauly and colleagues called for greater attention to structural issues involved with moral distress, including the ethical climate of the hospital administration. In addition, they questioned the current emphasis in nursing education on teaching ethical frameworks instead of specific guidance and skills in how to navigate increasingly complex ethical terrain in everyday practice. They also recommended interprofessional education—bringing together nursing, medical and other health professions students for this sort of ethics education.

The journal Narrative Inquiry in Bioethicshas a call for stories about moral distress from nurses and other health care clinicians. It would be great to see submissions from nurses working in schools, public health, home health, community-based clinics, and occupational health sites, as well as from acute care settings. This is your chance to contribute to a forum that could contribute to some positive structural changes in our health care system—and not just more deep breathing and meditation trainings.

Here’s the information: Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics Call for Stories

Narrative Symposium: The Many Faces of Moral Distress Among Clinicians

Edited by Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, F.A.A.N. and Renee Boss, MD, MHS

Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics will publish an issue devoted to personal stories from clinicians regarding situations that cause moral distress and how they have responded to them. Moral distress arises when professionals find that they are unable to act in accordance with their moral convictions. The focus of this inquiry is on the personal and professional short- and long-term impact of moral distress and the ways that clinicians respond to and make meaning from that distress. Appropriate contributors might include nurses, physicians, social workers, nursing assistants, clinical ethicists, occupational and physical therapists, and professionals in training. We want true, personal stories in a form that is easy to read.

In writing your story, you might want to think about:

·         Which specific clinical situations give rise to moral distress? Why?

  • How do you experience moral distress—physically, psychologically, socially or spiritually?
  • How do you deal with moral distress? In past distressing situations

o   Did you take actions that allowed you to uphold your deepest values?

o   What conditions within yourself, the people involved, and the external environment allowed you to do this?

o   How did you made sense of the situation?

  • What have been the short or long term consequences?

o   Have you ever been professionally disciplined for acting upon your moral conviction?

o   How has moral distress affected your job performance or your commitment to your job?

o   What has been left undone or been the residual impact?

o   How have your own values evolved as a result of moral distress?

  • How would you change the system (e.g., policies, hierarchies, processes) to alleviate moral distress within your position? Do you think it can be alleviated, or is it inevitable?

You do not need to address all of these questions—write on the issues that you think are most important to share with others. You do not need to be a writer, just tell your story in your own words. We plan to publish 12 stories (800 – 2000 words) on this topic. Additional stories may be published as online-only supplemental material. We also publish two to four commentary articles that discuss the stories in the journal.

If you are interested in submitting a story, we ask you first to submit a 300-word proposal—a short 
description of the story you want to tell. Please include a statement about what type of clinician you are and what kind of environment you work in (no institutional names are needed). Inquiries or proposals should be sent to the editorial office via email: narrativebioethics@gmail.com. We will give preference to story proposals received by Oct 31st. For more information about the journal Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, the guidelines for authors, and privacy policies, visit our webpage with Johns Hopkins University Press at: http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/narrative_inquiry_in_bioethics/guidelines.html

 

In (Nurses) We Trust

An oil lamp, the symbol of nursing in many cou...
Image via Wikipedia

Nurses did it again: topped Gallop’s annual Honesty and Ethics of professions survey for the twelfth straight year. In fact, nursing has topped the Gallop survey every year except one since nursing was added to the list in 1999. Nursing was eclipsed by firefighters in the 2001 poll, which was conducted two months after 911. It is interesting to note that Gallop started the Honesty and Ethics survey in 1976, and nursing wasn’t included until 1999. Prior to 1999 pharmacists or clergy were rated #1.

The 2011 Gallop Honesty and Ethics poll was based on a telephone (landline and cell) survey conducted November 28-December 1st from a random sample of 1,012 adults representing all 50 states and Washington, DC. The survey question was, “Please tell me how you would rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in these different fields—very high, high, average, low, or very low?” Rankings of the professions by overall results are done based on the percentage of respondents answering either ‘very high’ or ‘high.’ This year 84% of those surveyed rated nurses as very high/high (and only 1% rated nurses ‘very low/low). Pharmacists were the next highest medical profession in the ranking, 73%, very high/high, followed by medical doctors at 70%. Military officers and high school teachers rank higher than doctors.

The phrase, “nursing is the most trusted profession in the US” is inserted into many public speeches—by nursing leaders ,of course—but also by politicians pandering to the nursing vote. It is almost taken for granted that nurses are trusted. But why are we so trusted?

First, you can’t trust nursing leaders for the full answer to this question. They have a vested interest in positive spin, such as this recent statement by ANA’s President Karen Daley: “The public’s continued trust in nurses is well-placed, and reflects appreciation for the many ways nurses provide expert care and advocacy.” Well, yes, but isn’t there more to it than that?

If you dig into analysis by the Gallop researchers, they point out that the medical professions as a whole are generally highly trusted in our society, and that stability is the norm in American’s rating of professions. However, American’s opinions do shift in response to real-world events (e.g.: 911 and firefighters), and mostly to large scandals that reflect poorly on a profession. For instance, the clergy took a tumble in ratings in the wake of the Catholic priest sex abuse scandals (as well as the Evangelical sex scandals such as Jim Bakker/closets, etc). For whatever reason (relative low-profile/low power and prestige perhaps?) nurses and pharmacists have been able to avoid widespread scandals.

Sandy Summers (a nurse) on her The Truth About Nursing website states, “The reason the ‘most trusted’ poll results don’t do too much for us is that this public view often goes hand in hand with the prevailing vision of nurses as devoted, angelic handmaidens.” And Suzanne Gordon (a journalist/not a nurse, but rather a die-hard nurse advocate) goes even further, writing on her blog last year, “I am getting tired of these polls that try to assuage nurses and stroke them and make them feel better.” Both Sally and Suzanne point out that trust does not equal respect, and that many people may trust nurses but have little idea what they really do. But I’m not convinced that you have to understand what someone does to be able to trust them.

I find it intriguing that the four most highly trusted professions (listed in order) are nurses, military officers, pharmacists, and grade school teachers. All four have strict codes of ethics and standards of practice, and all—for the most part—work within rigid hierarchies for ‘the man’ or ‘the woman.’ They don’t typically work on their own as physicians can and often do. They all, in various ways, take orders. And they aren’t exactly the highest paid professions around—although the average pharmacist salary now tops six figures. So—taking orders within a rigid hierarchy and not profiting in a huge way would seem to be related to high public trust. The lowest ranked professions on the trust survey are members of congress, car salespeople, telemarketers, and lobbyists. The lesson here for our country? Perhaps more nurses should become members of congress?