Conferences & Symposia

Should Conscience Be Your Guide?
Exploring Conscience-Based Refusals in Health Care

A medical assistant refuses to stop a patient’s tube feedings ... Such refusals based on claims of conscience are becoming increasingly common. This timely conference will focus on exploring such refusals, including defining a claim of conscience and discerning valid from invalid claims, reviewing related legal trends and employment laws, identifying best institutional practices for protecting both health care providers’ and patients’ rights, and trouble-shooting difficult cases. This conference will be of interest to health care providers, administrators, labor lawyers, and policy makers who grapple with how to meet patients’ health care needs while accommodating staff with diverse beliefs.

The Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network is a membership organization established by the Law and Health Care Program at the University of Maryland School of Law. Its purpose is to facilitate and enhance ethical reflection in all aspects of decision making in health care settings by supporting and providing informational and educational resources to ethics committees serving health care institutions in the State of Maryland. The Network will achieve this goal by:

• serving as a resource to ethics committees as they investigate ethical dilemmas within their institution and as they strive to assist their institution to function consistently with its mission statement;
• fostering communication and information sharing among Network members;
• providing educational programs for ethics committee members, other healthcare providers, and members of the general public on ethical issues in health care; and
• conducting research to improve the functioning of ethics committees and ultimately the care of patients in Maryland.

• Conference Brochure (PDF)