scholarly journals Suffering Absence: Hauerwas and the Challenges to Faithful Presence in Contemporary Medical Training

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 464-470
Author(s):  
Benjamin W. Frush

In this essay, the author draws on the theologian Stanley Hauerwas’ work to describe the central challenge of the contemporary medical trainee as an inability to be present to suffering patients. While the central challenge to the physician was once the moral resources required for such presence, today it is the temporal and bureaucratic demands bearing upon the contemporary resident preclude even the opportunity for this presence. In order to seek out such spaces when time does become available, the contemporary trainee requires a moral community, as Hauerwas notes “like a church,” to remind him or her of the moral commitment to be present to suffering patients even in the midst of such structural challenges. Summary: Contemporary residents must actively seek out the opportunity to be present to suffering patients and require moral communities to sustain this commitment.

Author(s):  
Lucia Wocial

A moral community in healthcare is necessary for ethical practice of nursing. Nurses are bound to each other through common ethical commitments, whose purpose extends beyond, but must include, self-care. This article is written to help the reader reflect on what makes a moral community and to identify strategies to create one. The discussion also includes resources to support moral communities and organizational trust, and thoughts to help nurses to find their places in a moral community.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-116
Author(s):  
Bryan R. Warnick ◽  
Campbell F. Scribner

The following article surveys changes to school punishment in the United States over the past century – particularly, the rise of exclusionary methods and the school-to-prison pipeline – to argue that prevailing disciplinary techniques are out of step with the developmental ethos of education and the principles of democratic oversight. To remedy these shortcomings, it offers a defense of schools as moral communities and outlines disciplinary responses grounded in the recognition and respect of the restorative justice model.


High on God ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 33-36
Author(s):  
James K. Wellman ◽  
Katie E. Corcoran ◽  
Kate J. Stockly

We provide and support our definition of religion. Religion is (1) a social enactment of a desire for the ultimate. It is (2) embodied in ritual practices; (3) described by systems of symbols and beliefs; (4) developed in communal settings, and often institutionally legitimated. (5) Religion interacts and negotiates with powers and forces that are experienced as within and beyond the self and group. (6) This power or force is most often referred to as god/spirit or gods/spirits. (7) The affective experience of ritual, and the symbolic and social boundaries constructed in rites, mobilize group identity and bind the group into a moral community. Last, (8) these moral communities produce networks of solidarity, and carry the potential for tension and, more rarely, conflict and violence within and between groups.


2020 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-106061
Author(s):  
Benjamin Wade Frush ◽  
Jay R Malone

Medical trainees should learn from the actions of Nazi physicians to inform a more just contemporary practice by examining the subtle assumptions, or moral orientations, that led to such heinous actions. One important moral orientation that still informs contemporary medical practice is the moral orientation of elimination in response to suffering patients. We propose that the moral orientation of presence, described by theologian Stanley Hauerwas, provides a more fitting response to suffering patients, in spite of the significant barriers to enacting such a moral orientation for contemporary trainees.


Hypatia ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Overall

This review essay examines H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.'s The Foundations of Bioethics, a contemporary nonfeminist text in mainstream biomedical ethics. it fo-cuses upon a central concept, Engelhardt's idea of the moral community and argues that the most serious problem in the book is its failure to take account of the political and social structures of moral communities, structures which deeply affect issues in biomedical ethics.


2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Reimer ◽  
Jeanne Clevenger ◽  
Robert Welsh ◽  
Kyle Matsuba

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