Let’s begin with two stories about the growing and important field of bioethics. The first is from Ryan Pferdehirt, the newly named Flanigan Chair in Bioethics at the Kansas City-based Center for Practical Bioethics. A hospital once asked him to consult on a bioethics case in which a son th ought his desperately ill, hospitalized mother was starving. The son insisted that she be fed through a feeding tube. But Pferdehirt knew that in her condition the woman “was experiencing other things” in her body but certainly not hunger. He carefully explained to the son why that was so and “that resolved the issue.” “Not being medical,” he explains, “I have a skillset of being a bridge. I understand the doctors and understand the family and I can phrase things or get information from people in a particular way. And people want to be heard.” The second story is from the Rev. Dr. Tarris (Terry) Rosell, professor of pastoral theology and ethics at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Overland Park, Kansas. He retired as Flanigan Chair at the end of December, a day before Pferdehirt — who joined the center in 2019 and since 2023 has served as vice president of ethics services — took over: Rosell once was asked to consult with a cardiologist about the most ethical thing to do when “a man came in with a pacemaker and a defibrillator and said he wanted both turned off. The doctor said, ‘We can turn off the defibrillator if he doesn’t want to be shocked and if the shock would be torture for him.’” But, the cardiologist added, “if I also turn off his pacemaker, he’s 100 percent dependent. He’s going to die within a few minutes.” When he explained that, the patient said, “I know that. Turn them both off.” Rosell was there to make it clear to the physician that “the consequences are potential homicide.” And, needless to say, homicide doesn’t qualify as ethical medical behavior. Ryan Pferdehirt is the new Flanigan Chair in Bioethics at the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City. His job is to consult with hospitals and physicians to make sure treatment for patients meets the highest ethical standards. (Contributed) In Kansas City and around the country, medical ethicists like Pferdehirt and Rosell are increasingly being asked to help medical professionals find the most ethical treatment for patients. It can be a complex, puzzling, and difficult job, and artificial intelligence, organ transplantation, experimental treatments, and other issues are causing the medical ethics field to grow. Pferdehirt explains the work this way: “So I will talk with family members, have family meetings, talk with the physicians, talk with everyone and then put in a recommendation about whether it’s more ethically permissible to continue (a treatment) or it’s more ethically permissible to withhold or withdraw aggressive measures. We really focus everything on the dignity and respect of a person. “We work a lot with the family getting to know who the patient is and making sure that goals of care are in line with what patients would find is medically possible and also within their medical preferences.” From Classroom to Hospital Pferdehirt came to this work via being a philosophy major in college and then teaching at the university level. But medicine and its complex ethical issues fascinated him, so he eventually decided against being a classroom teacher. Instead, he started hanging around hospitals, observing the work of doctors and nurses while also discerning the role of chaplains. Although he, his wife and children are active Catholics, Pferdehirt didn’t want to be a priest or hospital chaplain. “One of the major differences (between chaplains and ethicists),” he explains, “is that chaplains are really there to support the patient. We (ethicists) are really there to support the clinical decision making. Chaplains are much more interested in spiritual health, and we’re more interested in the ethics of the actions themselves.” Still, he says, “sometimes I get envious of the ivory tower. . . But philosophy is something you do, not something you study. And this is doing philosophy. This is doing ethics.” Rosell, by contrast, came to bioethics more than 30 years ago through his work as a pastor and then seminary professor. As he explains, he got interested in the “moral dimensions of health care and the ethics.” “… philosophy is something you do, not something you study. And this is doing philosophy. This is doing ethics.” Ryan Pferdehirt, Flanigan Chair in Bioethics at the Center for Practical Bioethics When he first entered the field, he says, “My first issues were about end-of-life and advance care planning, but pretty quickly it was about the disparities in health and health care.” So, he worked with two nonprofit agencies to address the “gap in health care for uninsured folks.” People could get primary care in various places, he noted, “but where do you go for specialty care if you don’t have insurance?” The field of medical ethics is so broad and changing that it’s hard to keep up, especially given that there aren’t yet enough medical ethicists available to meet the demand for them. Origins “We’ve had medicine for so long,” says Pferdehirt, “but the field of medical ethics is relatively new. It started when dialysis became available, ventilators and organ transplants became available — all this technology of the 20th century started making this possible. And the ethics was murky, so we decided that we need people who are able to have these conversations with patients and do this.” In his new Flanigan job, Pferdehirt connects with area hospitals, “serving as the lead ethicist for these organizations and teaching them how to do this, teaching what structures need to be put into place and then skills I’ve learned over the years.” He also remains in touch with Sister Rosemary Flanigan, after whom the chair position is named. Sister Rosemary is closing in on age 100 but, as the center noted in a recent press release, “continues to educate, prod and inspire those who remain her students of moral philosophy, bioethics, spirituality and life.” Overcoming Mistrust As Pferdehirt follows in the footsteps of Flanigan, Rosell and others, a big issue now is what he calls the public’s distrust of the medical system. “My grandmother used to joke that you spell doctor ‘G-o-d’ because the doctor would say something and ask, ‘Do you want a second opinion?’ And she would say, ‘Why would I want a second opinion? I saw the doctor. He’s the best.’ But now I feel that in society, particularly with the internet. . .there is a level of distrust (in the medical field). I feel like a lot of the public feels there are hidden motives, hidden agendas.” So his new job will be to help overcome that distrust with reliable information and a commitment to doing the ethical thing for everyone — patients and practitioners alike. And when he and other ethicists do their jobs well, the whole health system will work better. Bill Tammeus, an award-winning columnist formerly with The Kansas City Star, writes the “Faith Matters” blog for The Star’s website, book reviews for The National Catholic Reporter and The Presbyterian Outlook. His latest book is Love, Loss and Endurance: A 9/11 Story of Resilience and Hope in an Age of Anxiety. Email him at wtammeus@gmail.com. The post Feeding Tubes and Defibrillators first appeared on Flatland. ...read more read less