This biography of a living person relies too much on references to primary sources .(September 2018) |
Christine I. Mitchell | |
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Born | |
Education | Boston University: MSN, MS Harvard Divinity School: MTS |
Alma mater | Boston University, MSN, MS; Harvard University, MTS |
Occupation(s) | Educational filmmaker and bioethicist |
Years active | 1979 to present |
Employer | Harvard Medical School |
Organization(s) | Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Boston University |
Notable work | "Code Gray: Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing" |
Movement | U |
Spouse | Married to Gordon Jack Schultz |
Children | Three sons |
Awards | 1984 Academy Award nomination, short documentary Code Gray: Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing [1] [2] [3] < |
Website | HMS Center for Bioethics profile page for Christine Mitchell |
Christine I. Mitchell (born December 8, 1951) is an American filmmaker [4] [5] [6] and bioethicist and until her retirement in September 2022, the executive director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School (HMS). [7] [8]
Mitchell studied nursing at Boston University, where she earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in the field. She then studied philosophical and religious ethics and the ethics of care at Harvard University and the Harvard Divinity School, where she earned a master's degree.
Ethics Fellowships:
She is known for her role in shaping the field in clinical ethics consultations for morally difficult issues in hospital settings. She is a founding member of the American Society for Bioethics Consultation, on which she currently serves, [13] [14] and American Society for Bioethics and Humanities's Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs standing committee, [15] and most recently, the Ethics Advisory Board of the Human Brain Project's Ethics and Society Subproject, [16] [17] funded by the European Commission. She is a former president of the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics, where she serves on the editorial board of its journal, [18] [19] [20] and the Freedom from Cancer Challenge, where she is a project Advisor. [21]
Mitchell developed an interest in nursing ethics during her years at Boston University, which led her to pursue a Master of Theological Studies degree emphasizing ethics at Harvard University and the Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge. Between those two programs, however, she practiced clinical nursing for several years in Boston and Charlottesville, Virginia, where she became Assistant Professor of Nursing at University of Virginia School of Nursing.
Prior to her role with Harvard's Center for Bioethics, formerly the Division of Medical Ethics (DME) (where she had been associate director before its reorganization), [22] [23] [24] she taught ethics and professional courses for medical students and in the Master of Bioethics Degree Program while on the faculty of the HMS Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. [25]
Her research focuses on clinical ethics consultation and public engagement in bioethics policies, including end-of-life issues, assisted reproductive technologies, [26] and resource allocation related to major natural disasters or pandemics. Mitchell also leads the Ethics Leadership Group for Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and health care facilities. [27] She has contributed to the development of nursing ethics as a discipline.
Mitchell has been involved in ethics work at Boston Children's Hospital, [28] where she founded the hospital's ethics program, directed the hospital's ethics consultation service, and led its Ethics Advisory Committee for thirty years. [29] [30] She has provided ethics consultation at Massachusetts General Hospital, Baystate Medical Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Salem Hospital in Salem, Massachusetts, and Maine Medical Center.
In the Center for Bioethics, Mitchell co-founded with Carol Powers, JD, the volunteer citizen Community Ethics Committee for "informed public input on ethical aspects of health care and health policies." [31] [32] [33] She also developed the annual Harvard Clinical Bioethics Course, [34] leads monthly clinical ethics and Harvard Research Ethics Consortia, [35] and teaches in the HMS Fellowship in Bioethics Program. [36]
Since 2002, Mitchell has edited ethics cases for The Journal of Clinical Ethics, [37] where she has been on the editorial board since 1989 and is currently its associate editor. She lectures outside Harvard on clinical ethics issues [38] In 2009, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities formed the Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs standing committee [39] (CECA) in order to address growing concerns that those providing clinical ethics consultation (CEC) were unqualified.
She is a clinical practice team member of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, [40] which produced A Blueprint for 21st Century Nursing Ethics: Report of the National Nursing Summit. [41] She is a member of the advisory committee [42] for the Cambridge Consortium for Bioethics Education, [43] which produces and publishes Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. [44] She also is an advisory board member [45] of the Neuroethics Network (Paris). [46] [47]
In 2018, she was elected vice president of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors, [48] [49]
Mitchell's first ethics media was an instructional interactive computer videodisc in 1990, Nursing Ethics and Law, which she produced with two collaborators.
With filmmaker Ben Achtenberg [50] (with whom she has worked for over 26 years, and sometimes with others) she has produced six documentary videos. She was an associate producer of "Code Gray: Ethical Dilemmas in Nursing", a documentary film, [51] which was nominated for (but not awarded) an Academy Award in 1984; [52] [53] their 2002 video, Stanley, about ethical decisions in caring for a patient with end stage kidney failure, was part of a 3-film documentary series [54] and awarded a 2004 Freddie award for medical media. [55] Their 2003 video, Everyday Choices, concerned a visiting nurse and an elderly patient facing ethical questions about waning capacities and independence. [56]
She is an advisor to The Refugee Media Project, [57] sponsored by The Center for Independent Documentary, [58] also of Boston.
Christine Mitchell has published on the ethics of medical practice, end-of-life care, pediatrics, fetal medicine, [72] gender, [73] oncology, reality medical television, [74] religion, [75] [76] [77] surgery, [78] and current topics in bioethics. [79] [80] [81] Her interests recently have expanded to the universal human right to benefit from the progress of science.
Casuistry is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending abstract rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also used pejoratively to criticise the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to ethical questions. It has been defined as follows:
Study of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct....
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health, including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine, ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.
Medical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Such tenets may allow doctors, care providers, and families to create a treatment plan and work towards the same common goal. These four values are not ranked in order of importance or relevance and they all encompass values pertaining to medical ethics. However, a conflict may arise leading to the need for hierarchy in an ethical system, such that some moral elements overrule others with the purpose of applying the best moral judgement to a difficult medical situation. Medical ethics is particularly relevant in decisions regarding involuntary treatment and involuntary commitment.
Nursing ethics is a branch of applied ethics that concerns itself with activities in the field of nursing. Nursing ethics shares many principles with medical ethics, such as beneficence, non-maleficence and respect for autonomy. It can be distinguished by its emphasis on relationships, human dignity and collaborative care.
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Clinical ethics support services initially developed in the United States of America, following court cases such as the Karen Ann Quinlan case, which stressed the need for mechanisms to resolve ethical disputes within health care. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations requirement for hospitals, nursing homes, and home care agencies to have a standing mechanism to address ethical issues has also fostered this development.
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