THE PROJECT MICROETHICS AND JIM FERRIS THE HOSPITAL POEMS *These - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

THE PROJECT

MICROETHICS AND JIM FERRIS’ THE HOSPITAL POEMS *These slides are from the Ethics Lab session “ ‘The Hospital Poems’, a vehicle for teaching microethics?”, presented by Samantha Sargent at the annual conference of the Canadian Bioethics Society, May 24, 2019

Microethics

• Traditional ethics
• Macro
• Resource Management
• Big Questions
• Viewpoint
• Outside vs. Inside
• Rationality, Representation & Respect
• Truth & Truth Telling

Microethics (continued)

• “Gestures, Postures, Intonations, Pauses, and Silences”
• Word Choice (e.g. “baby” vs. “fetus”)
• Interpretation
• Hospital everyday for Healthcare workers but usually “pivotal”

moment for patients

• Routine (Efficiency) vs. Autonomy

How do you as a healthcare worker show your patients that you recognize their experiences and perspectives? Share a story about a time you engaged with a patient’s perspective either in the moment

• r after the fact

Jim Ferris

• Poet and performance artist
• Endowed Chair in Disability Studies at the

University of Toledo

• The Hospital Poems (2004)
• Main Street Rag Poetry Award in 2004
• “Memoir in Verse”
• “Fixing” – medical and social goals
• Pathologization of disability?

The Coliseum

• Follows “From the Surgeons”, a list of his medical records from ‘60-

’70 through repeated surgeries to lengthen his left leg.

• These records discuss his adjustment in school, his use of braces and

canes, and the atrophy of his muscles

• “The Coliseum” shows us (the reader) what it is like to be the

subject of one of his surgeries

DISCUSSION: THE COLISEUM

• What lines jump out to you?
• What language do you notice?
• How is the patient positioned in this poem? The healthcare providers?
• What non-verbal cues of the healthcare providers is the patient picking up on?
• What features of healthcare professionals and their demeanor does the patient highlight

through his language choice?

• How does this poem make you feel?

Standard Operating Procedure

• Follows “The Coliseum”
• Shows the operation from the operating physician’s

viewpoint as imagined by the patient

• Shows how the patient sees the operator

DISCUSSION: STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE

• What lines jump out to you?
• What word choices do you notice?
• What is implied about “Standard Operating Procedure” in this poem?
• How do we think the patient came to this view of internality of the healthcare provider? What

clues might have led them to the conclusions we see here?

• How could the operating physician have behaved differently in regards to microethics?
• How can might the operating physician have engaged with Ferris to reconcile these two

different views of the same event to come to a shared understanding?

WOULD MICROETHICS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

• Recognizing patient experience
• Acknowledge patient feelings, assumptions, & fears
• Comfort in the clinical setting
• Improved relationship with healthcare providers

DISCUSSION: TAKING MICROETHICS HOME

• What are some ways you can enhance your engagement with patients through non-

verbal communication techniques?

• Specifically when dealing with disability, what are some ways you can adjust your language

and non-verbal communication away from “fixing” and pathologizing while still providing necessary treatment?

• What special attention can you pay to ableist language as a part of microethical

engagement?

Works Cited

Ferris, J., The Hospital Poems. Charlotte, NC., Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2004. Frank, A., “Dense Junctures of Ethical Concern” Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, Vol. 3,1 Spring 2013, p.35-40. Garrie, A., et al., “Medical Students’ Perceptions of Dementia after Participation in Poetry Workshop with People with Dementia,” International Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease,

• Vol. 2016, 2016, p.1-7.

“Jim Ferris.” University of Toledo, 24 January 2018, www.utoledo.edu/al/disability/faculty/ferris-jim.html “Jim Ferris.” Poetry Foundation, 2018, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jim-ferris Lindemann, H., “Introduction.” Stories and Their Limits: Narrative Approaches to Bioethics,

• ed. Hilde Lindemann, New York, Routledge, 1997, p. vii-xx.

.

Works Cited (cont)

Mandal J., et al., “Microethics in Medical Education and Practice,” Tropical Parasitology.

• Vol. 5,2, 2015, p.86-87.

Scully, J., Disability Bioethics. Maryland, Roman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2008. Truog, R., et. al., “Microethics: The Ethics of Everyday Clinical Practice,” Hastings Center Report, Vol. 45,1, 2015, p.11-17 Wolters, F., Wignen-Meijer, M., “The Role of Poetry and Prose in Medical Education: The Pen as Mighty as the Scalpel?” Health Care and the Arts, Vol. 1,1, March 2012, p.43- 50.