It is Ethics Awareness Week in the Sunrise Health Region, and the region is hosting events to keep ethics fresh in people's minds. This year's theme is moral courage. In keeping with that, the Sunrise recently held a panel discussion to talk about ethics in different fields, including healthcare, and discuss the importance of moral courage in difficult situations.
Suzette Szumutku, Co-chair of the Ethics Committee for the Sunrise Health Region, says that Ethics Week is about building awareness of ethical issues in the area, not just in the health region but overall in the community, as the need for ethical decision making extends beyond health care. The panel discussion itself was about talking about moral courage in different fields, including law and clergy, and what the different standards are based around. She says that it was an event that can keep people thinking about moral courage as they attend, but that it is something that attendees can take back to their work lives.
"We had people who will go back to their workplaces and talk to their coworkers about what they heard. Hopefully that will instigate conversation among their staff team. That's where the rubber meets the road, that's where people will look at the way they are managing things and the way they are doing things, and possibly may make some decisions about it. Today is the start, and I think it will move out into discussions and hopefully people will gain a little bit more awareness," Szumutku says.
She believes that ethics are becoming a larger part of people's lives, and need to be considered when making any decision, but it's also something that becomes more difficult in many workplaces with new developments. With a week like this, the intent is to keep ethics fresh in the mind of people as they make decisions and observe the way others are making decisions around them.
A central component of the panel discussion was moral courage, and the difficulty of overcoming barriers to making morally courageous but difficult decisions. Presenters focused on the barriers, including potential of consequences for those who have to play the whistle blower. Szumutku says that it's up to an organization to create an environment that supports those who have to make difficult and morally courageous choices, and developing policies that keep ethics at the forefront of the organization.
"When we can support each other in the desire to do right, then we can overcome some of those barriers," Szumutku says.
