IBC47 2026: Caring in Times of Crisis – Special Topics
AT IBC47 we are pleased to offer Special Topics sessions developed in response to participants’ expressed interests. During the Special Topics sessions participants will explore the topic in more depth with faculty experts on that topic. This year’s list of topics and facilitators currently includes the list below. Additional topics are being developed.
Sean Aas & Joel Reynolds, “What is Disability Bioethics?” Nearly all of the conditions treated by medicine are or could be disabilities. Nearly all of us are or will be disabled. This discussion will explore the complex intersections of bioethics research and disability studies research, including the emerging field of “disability bioethics.”
Christine Grady & Carol Taylor, “Celebrating the Moral Strength of Health Care Professionals” In this special topic discussion, we will review some key concepts and findings about moral distress and moral resilience, and then introduce the concept of moral strength. Moral strength is based on the foundational commitment, competence, and integrity of HCP that grounds their readiness and capacity to manage ordinary and extraordinary ethical challenges day after day, year after year as they carry out their work. Individual and institutional factors necessary for maintaining moral strength will be discussed.
Ed Grant & Christopher Spevak, ““Advancing the ‘Common Good’ in Faith-Based Health Care: Tensions in Culture and Law.” The notion of the “common good” is typically described in reference to its “externalities” — the tangible, extrinsic benefits that an enterprise such as health care offers to society at large. However, a richer and more enduring concept of the common good gives equal weight to the intrinsic common good of the persons and institutions that participate in the enterprise. This session will explore these concepts as they apply to the provision of health care by faith-based individuals and institutions. Particular attention will be paid to how an undue emphasis on externalities can compromise both the “common good” particular to faith-based institutions as well as the ability of those “societies” to contribute to the overall “common good.”
David Miller, “Will Medical Ethics Follow the Money?” In this session, we will examine how private equity, insurer and corporate consolidation, and policy incentives are reshaping American medical practice. We will discuss how market forces can distort physicians’ fiduciary duties and health equity goals and how (or whether) the patient and the healing relationship can remain the moral center of medicine in a financialized, free-market healthcare system.
Myles Sheehan, “Pellegrino’s Internal Morality of Medicine.” In this discussion we will review the elements of Pellegrino’s concept of the Internal Morality of Medicine, describe some contemporary challenges to the concept due to the way medicine is currently practiced, explain objections to it, and consider whether the concept is still vital or a quaint relic.
Bill Sullivan, “The Missing Patients: Caring for and Coaching Caregivers.” In clinical contexts, every patient has or should have at least one identified ‘caregiver’. In public health care contexts, a major health care workforce consists of ‘caregivers’. In both contexts, caregivers have typically been family members and their crucial roles are mostly unrecognized and unsupported. This discussion will explore the neglected caring for caregivers and ethical remedies in clinical and public health care.
Dan Sulmasy, “Ethical Questions Regarding Novel Organ-Procurement Techniques (TA-NRP)” Novel techniques have recently been developed that better preserve the function of organs procured by donation of organs after the circulatory determination of death. One of these, thoraco-abdominal normothermic regional perfusion (TA-NRP) has raised significant ethical questions such as whether the technique invalidates the determination of death by circulatory criteria and violates the dead donor rule. These and other controversies about the technique will be explored.
Sarah Vittone, “When Good Care Is Refused: Navigating Ethical Tensions and Risk of Harm” This session explores the ethical crisis that may arise when patients or their surrogates refuse recommended care specifically care with low burden and high benefit. Grounded in principles and virtue ethics, participants will examine how to balance respect for autonomy with the obligation to act for the patient’s good (mitigate harm) with attention to professional virtues (e.g., compassion, prudence, integrity). Through case-based discussion and practical application, the session equips professionals to navigate conflict, explore key perspectives, address inconsistencies in capacity and critical thinking elements, examine emotive influences on decision-making, and mitigate conflict to facilitate positive shared decisionmaking.