Author Description
How work gets done in complex health care systems is ethically important. When health care professionals and other staff are pressured to improvise, fix structural problems, or comply with competing policies, the uncertainty and distress they experience have potential consequences for patients, families, colleagues, and the system itself. This book presents a new theory of health care ethics that is grounded in the nature of health care work and how it is shaped by the ever-changing conditions of complex systems, in particular, problems of safety and harm. By exploring workarounds and other improvised practices in complex health care systems that are difficult for professionals to talk about openly, yet have unclear effects, including their value or risk to patients, this book offers a realistic look at our changing health care system and how we can improve the way we manage moral problems arising in the care of the sick. Berlinger argues that health care ethics in complex and changing health care systems should reflect the moral complexity of health care work, analyze common ethical challenges with reference to behaviors and pressures driven by the system itself, and support opportunities for health care professionals and staff at all levels to reflect on the problems they face and to take part in social change. The book's chapters include frameworks for looking at ethical challenges in health care as problems of safety and harm with consequences for patients. Are Workarounds Ethical? is designed to support clinician education in medicine, nursing, and interdisciplinary contexts and recommend methods for integrating ethics, safety, and justice in practice.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates whether improvised workarounds in complex health care systems are ethically justifiable when professionals face competing policies and structural constraints. Nancy Berlinger, a scholar in bioethics, utilizes a framework grounded in the realities of clinical labor to analyze how systemic pressures force staff to deviate from standard procedures. She argues that traditional ethics must evolve to address the moral complexity inherent in modern health care environments, shifting the focus from individual compliance to systemic safety and institutional accountability.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- A theoretical framework for evaluating ethical challenges as issues of safety and harm.
- Analysis of the pressures that drive clinicians to improvise or bypass established protocols.
- Methods for integrating ethics, safety, and justice into interdisciplinary clinical practice.
Scope Limits
- The text does not provide a universal checklist for every specific clinical scenario.
- It does not focus on individual patient-provider interactions in isolation from systemic influences.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Experts identify this work as a significant contribution to the field of organizational ethics in medicine, particularly for its focus on the hidden realities of clinical work. Readers frequently note that the text provides a practical, non-judgmental approach for educators and administrators to address systemic moral distress.
Page Count:
224
Publication Date:
2015-01-01
ISBN-10:
0190269316
ISBN-13:
9780190269319
Medical
Medical Ethics
Health Care
Public Health
Organizational Behavior
Allied Health
Professional Ethics