Teaching
Six universities, and a set of clinical ethics courses built for people who had to use them the same week.
Catholic University of America
Graduate teaching in bioethics and Catholic moral theology. Examination board member for PhD, MA, MRE, MDiv and STL candidates. Directed a doctoral dissertation on the Vatican Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origins and on the Dignity of Procreation in relation to Catholic revisionist moral theology.
University of Virginia
Director of Outreach Programs, Center for Biomedical Ethics. Principal Administrator of the Medical Center Ethics Committee, appointed by the Chairman of the Department of Medicine.
University of Nebraska Medical Center
University of Dallas
Undergraduate theology and ethics; moral theology for seminarians of Holy Trinity Seminary; graduate MA courses in bioethics.
St. Norbert College
Administrator of the Abbot S.M. Killeen Chair in Philosophy and Theology Visiting Scholars Program.
University of Notre Dame
Two seven-session course sequences, each delivered four times a year, written and taught for clinicians who would use them immediately.
Basic Clinical Ethics
A brief history of bioethics, clinical and organisational ethics, emotion and communication skills, informed consent, refusal of treatment, truth-telling, confidentiality, withholding and withdrawing life-prolonging treatment, care of the dying, and theological and spiritual responses to suffering.
Moral Issues in Caring for Suffering and Dying Patients
The nature of suffering and the goals of health care, communicating bad news, emotional navigation, assessment and goals of treatment, advance care planning, advance directives and powers of attorney, pain and palliation, what constitutes a good death, the last hours, and spiritual and pastoral care for dying patients.
Both were supported by substantial published resource handbooks containing ethical guidelines, current professional literature, legal and governmental regulation, and case studies for seminar discussion.
Participants included physicians, large numbers of nursing staff, chaplains and pastoral care staff, social workers, psychiatry, midwifery, speech pathology, physiotherapy, intensive care, oncology and paediatric clinicians, lawyers, and Queensland Health Department officials including officers of the Legal Department and Health Rights Commissioners. Participants received professional development credit, and academic equivalency degree credit on request.
These courses were not offered elsewhere in Brisbane or in Queensland. Enrolments increased annually and the sequence ran approximately ten times.
clinicians and community graduates received Certificates of Completion in clinical ethics courses founded and taught by Philippe Foubert
As Director of the Intensive Colloquies and Resident Scholars Project at the University of Virginia’s Center for Biomedical Ethics, I held direct responsibility for a $300,000 grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, planning and delivering five-day residential colloquies in health care ethics for leaders from five professions — hospital chief executives, state legislators, religious leaders, appellate judges and medical journalists. I delivered presentations, edited the proceedings for each program, and was responsible for every aspect of project management including budget, program planning, and narrative and financial reporting to the Pew Foundation’s executive officers.
I served as a faculty member of the U.S. Department of Education’s interdisciplinary national program Starting and Strengthening Hospital Ethics Programs, teaching hospital teams across the country how to build an ethics programme from nothing and how to keep one alive once built.
At the Mater I delivered clinical ethics ward rounds across each hospital in the complex on end of life care, prenatal diagnosis, abortion, sterilisation, paediatric oncology, informed consent, emotion, communication and resuscitation orders; participated as a clinical team member in department ward rounds in the adult, paediatric and neonatal intensive care units; and delivered pastoral care staff development sessions on theological awareness and the practical skills of pastoral presence.
I collaboratively established the annual Clinical Research Methods and Evidence-Based Practice Course and delivered its research ethics component. I delivered regular three-hour corporate ethics seminars for front-line clinical staff, managers and executives as part of the Mercy 2000 program.