Changing Paradigms and Creating Opportunities – Establishing Clinical Ethics Forum and Consultations in Pakistan (V)
Annum Ishtiaq1, Sarosh Saleem2, Liaquat National Hospital & Medical College Karachi2, Lahore Punjab 1Liaquat National Hospital & Medical College, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan2Shalamar Medical and Dental College, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Abstract
Clinical ethics plays a crucial role in ensuring that patients receive the highest quality of care in any healthcare system. However, in some countries like Pakistan, there is little emphasis on clinical ethics teaching and consultations. A focused approach to establishing clinical ethics training and consultation services in Pakistan ensued with the First Clinical Ethics Retreat held in the summer of 2022. The aim was to bring together clinicians of Pakistan involved and interested in Clinical Ethics and Clinical ethics consultations in Pakistan in order to establish a national forum of clinical ethics. The two-day retreat was attended by professionals from Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad and was funded by the Hans Joachim Shwagger Award, awarded to Dr. Sarosh Saleem at ICCEC 2021. The retreat enabled the participants to share their experiences and challenges faced in clinical decision-making and ethics consultations. The retreat included a unique perspective on using art to convey an expressive psychological meaning of famous paintings presented by an artist/surgeon, reflective exercises, and some techniques for mitigating moral distress. A Clinical Ethics Group was established as a result where complex clinical ethics consultation cases are discussed by colleagues from all over the country. In the summer of 2023, a series of “Advanced Clinical Ethics Consultation Workshops” in various cities of Pakistan were conducted to facilitate capacity building. The authors believe that the unique socio-cultural and economic challenges faced in Pakistan require thorough deliberation and these activities will help foster the environment necessary for those deliberations
Biography
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