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Childhood cancers are life-threatening diseases that affect the whole family. During the treatment moral situations might arise. Research on how parents perceive moral challenges in childhood cancer care is sparse. The aim was to explore parents' main concern, and how they deal with their main concern, when facing moral challenges in childhood cancer care. Data collection included focus group interviews with parents. The data analysis was carried out according to a classical theory and revealed the core category "Sheltering in chaos". The strategies to handle the main concern included "To bring the child through a life-saving trajectory" by "Balancing control" and "Deliberating of suffering. The consequences included feelings of being "Torn between roles". "Familiarity" emerged as a facilitating factor to handle moral challenges. The results indicate that parents are torn between different roles, and that the care experience is improved through familiarity with the healthcare professionals. The following findings may inspire new ways of offering moral support to families in childhood cancer care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This article presents a set of quality characteristics of clinical ethics support (CES) in the Netherlands. Methods: The quality characteristics were developed with a large group of stakeholders working with CES, participating in the Dutch Network for Clinical Ethics Support (NEON). Results: The quality characteristics concern the following domains: (1) goals of CES, (2) methods of CES, (3) competences of CES practitioners, and (4) implementation of CES. Conclusions: We discuss suggestions for how to use the quality characteristics, discuss some aspects that stand out about these quality characteristics, and reflect on the method and the status of the quality characteristics. The quality characteristics are meant as a heuristic instrument, helping CES practitioners to explore and improve the quality of CES in a health care organization, but at the same time they can be improved based on experiences during their application to CES practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors comment on a study by E. Fox and colleagues on opinions of ethics practitioners in smaller non-teaching hospitals. Topics discussed include their conclusion on the ethics-related needs of these hospitals, proposed approach to clinical ethics support (CES), and ways of organizing ethics support differently.

The article offers information on how to support patient and family in dealing with ethical issues has been relevance of moral case deliberation (MCD). Topics inlcude the patients and family in MCD with health care professionals fosters attention of health care professionals, the ethical concerns and moral perspectives of patients and family, and enhances mutual understanding, and the possibility of fostering mutual understanding between them and the professionals.

The article discusses the relationship between developing ethical norms and the actual implementation of norms. Topic include address the view of the ethicist as someone who is to "support ethical actions," and therefore should "collaborate with those who have expertise in implementing social change" (69), in order to fulfill the "essential purpose of ethics".

The article offers information on the dialogical approach toward assessing the quality of facilitators of oral case deliberation. It mentions about the certification of ethics support staff that inspired by a pragmatic hermeneutics view- point on ethics; and also highlights a dialogical heuristic framework within a responsive quality assessment research project.

How can ethical decision-making in organizations be further reinforced? This article explores the relevance of Michel Foucault’s ideas on art-of-living for ethics education in organizations. First, we present a theoretical analysis of art-of-living in the work of Foucault as well as in the work of two philosophers who greatly influenced his work, Friedrich Nietzsche and Pierre Hadot. Next, we illustrate how art-of-living can be applied in ethics education. In order to examine some of the benefits and challenges of applying the art-of-living in the practice of ethics education, we discuss an example of how the art-of-living concept has been used in a train-the-trainer course on military ethics. We suggest that Foucauldian art-of-living may foster awareness of power dynamics which are in play when military personnel face moral dilemmas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ethics training has become a common phenomenon in the training of military professionals at all levels. However, the perceived outcomes of this training remain open. In this article, we analyze the experiences of course participants who were interviewed 6-12 months after they had participated in a train-the-trainer course in military ethics developed by the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy. Through qualitative inductive analysis, it is shown how participants evaluate the training, how they perceive the development of their moral competence, and how they see the impact of the training on their own training practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the nature of clinical ethics expertise as one who has the ability to co-create normative recommendations by guiding a dialogical process of moral learning. It highlights a new insights that ethicist should pay attention to, shifting the attention from the formulation of theoretical elements to the solution of concrete ethical and practical problems; and focusing on the practical meaning of moral judgments.

Moral competence is important for soldiers who have to deal with complex moral dilemmas in practice. However, openly dealing with moral dilemmas and showing moral competence is not always easy within the culture of a military organization. In this article, based on analysis of experiences during a train the trainer course on military ethics, we will describe the tensions between military and personal values on the one hand and the challenges related to showing moral competence on the other hand. We will explain these tensions and challenges by elaborating on various aspects of the military organization, such as being a soldier, group bonding, uniformity, hierarchy, lack of privacy and masculinity. Furthermore, we will demonstrate how moral competence can be addressed and fostered during the training by introducing specific interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relationship between ethical theory and clinical ethics support (CES) practice. Topics mentioned include the role of such theory in the deliberation on ethical issues, the importance of ethical theory for facilitating such deliberation, and the need to examine the status of ethical theories for use in CES practice.

The article presents the authors' view on the ECQAT quality assessment tool proposed by researchers R.A. Pearlman and colleagues for the ethics consultancy profession. Topics discussed include the relationship between ethics consultation and good documentation, the authors' opinion on the quality concept presented in the ECQAT quality assessment tool, and the author's alternative approach for the quality concept of the ECQAT quality assessment tool.

The article compares the approach of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) ethics code and the Dutch ethics approach in The Netherlands project for health care ethics consultants (HCECs). Topics covered include the ASBH code as more aspirational than formal with no plans for evaluation or follow-ups while the Dutch approach centers on the clinical ethics support services (CESS) quality criteria. Also cited are the inductive Dutch approach and the deductive ASBH process.

The article discusses several studies concerning the relationship between empirical research and normative ethics from a hermeneutic perspective. It cites that hermeneutic ethics aims to improve both practice and ethics by establishing a dialogue between healthcare practitioners, wherein ethicists as a catalyst plays an important role. Their roles include helping practitioners to elaborate normative perspectives and develop shared views on handling situations in social practice.

The authors discuss moral dialogue between stakeholders as a moral learning process and a possible conflict resolution in clinical ethics consultation in 2015. Topics covered include the Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) method as a health care (HC) practitioner inquiry into concrete moral questions and situations, and MCD's recognition of the tragedy of a choice between two evils. The authors reference the article by G. A. M. Widdershoven et al in the 2007 issue of "Principles of HC ethics."