New Ideas

A place to bat around new thoughts and real, implementable ideas.

We need more critical thinking in clinical bioethics if patient autonomy is what we seek

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person looking into the sun

What is clinical bioethics? In my graduate bioethics program, we considered a range of healthcare topics in the context of our society’s ever-evolving moral and technological landscape – topics such as autonomy and consent, justice, equity, the allocation of resources, pandemics, emerging technologies, beginning and end-of-life issues, to name a few – all of which revealed a multitude … Read more

My latest book collaboration project: Ethics in Child Health – Principles and Cases in Neurodisability

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I am so pleased to share this book – it represents a year of my own involvement plus a year or two of defining the project and soliciting chapters (by the other editors, before I came on board). The book is a collection of articles submitted by professionals in neurodisability – physicians, medical specialists, nurses, … Read more

Fake work widens the class gap

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In my last post about Patient and Family-Centred Care, I made a passing reference to ‘fake work’ – a term I use to describe the administrative busywork required by parents and families in order to access and maintain services. I’ve written about it before but it’s worth repeating. When I say fake work I am … Read more

Ask Me Anything

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I gave a few talks this year, most of which left me dissatisfied. I think I delivered the ‘material’ okay and the audiences were receptive but each time I felt depleted and mildly embarrassed. I wrote about one of my experiences here. This time was different, thanks to sage advice from Carsten. It happened while … Read more

The Future of Care, in 3 minutes or less

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I just came back from the OACCAC‘s* annual conference – I was part of this illustrious panel: Dr. Tim Rutledge (CEO of North York General) Dr. Jonathan Kerr (Family physician and President of the Ontario Association of Family Physicians) Nadine Henningsen (President of the Canadian Home Care Association) Jennifer Johannesen (Patient and Caregiver Advocate) Moderator … Read more

A video project

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I’m launching a new site today! A sort of adjunct to my blog.  I’ve been sitting on it for a while and figured I should just release it already.  More videos are in the works.  I’ll post here when a new interview goes up.

Hopefully the site speaks for itself:

The Conversation Library »

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I decided to release it today because a) it’s the project that inspired me to write about Bill’s experiences in the previous 2 blog posts and b) it’s high time that Claire’s voice travels far and wide…  here’s a taste – very timely, given recent conversations about advocacy and activism.

A call to action for parents (part 2 of 2 videos)

  • 00:00 discusses the need for new parents to have mentors
  • 11:41 believes parents should align with disability activists

A proposal: abstract submitted to Canadian Bioethics Society conference

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My plan was to storm the health care world when my degree is finished – but I thought, why wait? I have proposed this abstract for the annual Canadian Bioethics Society conference this spring. The theoretical presentation spots are hotly contested and my bioethics colleagues are inarguably more qualified than me–but hey, who knows. My … Read more

Ethics of Fetal Intervention, and another big idea

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I was invited to participate in a panel discussion yesterday, at Mount Sinai Hospital’s bi-annual Fetal Update conference (which continues today).  I was there as a parent, joined by 3 ethics professionals, a fetal therapy physician, and a social worker. We were part of a session called “Ethics of Fetal Intervention” which represented a noticeable … Read more