Medical Ethics Mission

To promote the patient-centered values of traditional medicine the section seeks to uphold the traditional Lahey Clinic values of the patient centered compassionate health care. We support the traditional values of medicine that emphasize the prime importance of the patient's welfare.

• We seek to foster empathy by a better understanding of the human aspects of illness.
• We hope to comfort patients, families, and friends by helping them negotiate the difficult decisions demanded by modern medicine.
• We seek to improve the philosophic understanding of the problematic issues of modern medicine and biology.
• We seek to help our organization make ethically appropriate institutional decisions.
• We seek to support and comfort our colleagues who are struggling under the stress of ethically challenging situations.
• We seek to improve communication and negotiate conflict between patients, families, friends and healthcare providers.

The major tool of the Section of Medical Ethics is education by engaging in a philosophic discussion of the many troubling issues in medicine.

We sponsors the Lahey Clinic Section of Medical Ethics Lecture Series which is open to clinic personnel and the general public.

The Lahey Clinic Medical Ethics Newsletter features writings by highly regarded scholars and is published three times a year; its current circulation is 27,000 copies.

The Lahey Clinic Section of Medical Ethics Consultation Service responds to requests for consultation from patients, health care providers and families.

The Lahey Clinic Section of Medical Ethics supports an Ethics Library in the main clinic library that contains books, journals and videotapes of its ethics lectures.

The Lahey Clinic Section of Medical Ethics has written policies for the clinic on a variety of subjects.

The Lahey Clinic Section of Medical Ethics has a formal education program for medical students and resident house staff.