Ethics conferences typically include plenary and panel-type presentations. Some ethicists saw the need for a different kind of forum to find solutions to common challenges in the field. Thus, they organized the Clinical Ethics Unconference.1
“It’s a unique gathering of like-minded professional clinical ethicists that has spurred much good work in our field,” says Jordan Potter, PhD, HEC-C, supervisor of the Wellstar Fellowship in Clinical Ethics and co-director of the 2022 Clinical Ethics Unconference.
What sets the Unconference apart from traditional ethics conferences is a strong emphasis on collaboration among attendees. “A defining theme of the Unconference is innovation and problem-solving,” Potter says.
Traditional ethics conferences often focus on theoretical, less practical topics. In contrast, the Unconference prioritizes abstracts and sessions that aim to propel the field forward, and to address practical problems facing the field.
Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic ethics program surveyed participants right after the first Unconference and again eight months later. After eight months, 33 of 39 of respondents reported the event was either “highly” or “somewhat” meaningful to their clinical practice. Twenty-three attendees reported they implemented projects inspired by something they learned at the event.2
Hilary Mabel, JD, HEC-C, a clinical ethicist at Wellstar Ethics Program and co-director of the first and third Unconferences, helped develop formats for the event, such as lightning talks with real-time crowdsourcing. “This is meant to enable presenters to quickly share an innovative practice and receive feedback, by polling the audience about how to improve that practice,” Mabel explains.
Presenters submit an abstract for their topic, and go through a peer review process. This year’s lightning talks covered ethicist-led interventions for moral distress, metrics for predicting ethics consult volume, and clinical ethics program models that diverge from traditional models.
Another feature is peer-to-peer solution sharing. “This brings a small group together to solve a challenge that an individual ethics program faces, or that the field of clinical ethics as a whole faces,” Mabel says.
When best practice guidelines are developed at an Unconference, they are typically posted on the Unconference website for any clinical ethicist to use.3-5 “The goals are openness and usefulness for real-world practice,” Mabel says.
At the 2022 Unconference, attendees were tasked with developing best practice guidelines for curriculum standards and evaluations of clinical ethics fellowship programs. Another group met to brainstorm the steps necessary for fellowship accreditation. Those groups will collaborate post-conference to finalize their best practice guidelines, with the intent for them to be shared publicly for use by clinical ethics fellowship programs across the country.
“What I love about the Unconference is its collaborative nature,” Mabel shares. “Clinical ethics is still professionalizing as a field, so bringing people together to learn from each other and to tackle hard problems that advance the state of the field is invaluable.”
There is much interaction, brainstorming, and learning all about the successes and challenges of colleagues at different institutions. “The Unconference also fosters collaboration afterward. Folks work on projects and papers in the months and years that follow, based on ideas sparked at the Unconference,” Mabel says.
For example, at the 2020 Unconference, Mabel and Potter co-led a peer-to-peer session on what to do with ethics committees in ethics programs with professional clinical ethicist staffing. To this day, seven members of that peer-to-peer group are collaboratively working on this problem.
“Insights from this group’s work helped us to restructure our own ethics program’s offerings, ultimately supporting our program’s major move to transition away from the traditional ethics committee structure,” Potter says.
At the 2022 Unconference, a new working group was created, comprised of clinical ethics fellowship directors, mentors, and those working on creating new ethics fellowships. “It is aimed at increasing communication and collaboration across the various clinical ethics fellowships,” Potter reports.
REFERENCES
- Mabel H, Ford PJ. A working un-conference to advance innovations among clinical ethics programs. J Clin Ethics 2019;30:247-250.
- Mabel H, Bruno B, Jankowski J, et al. Improving real-world innovation and problem solving in clinical ethics: Insights from the first clinical ethics un-conference. J Clin Ethics 2021;32:331-342.
- Innovations in Clinical Ethics: A Working Un-Conference. Keeping clinicians responsible for addressing ethical challenges. Oct. 5, 2018.
- Innovations in Clinical Ethics: A Working Un-Conference. Ethical considerations in multiple valve replacement for infective endocarditis secondary to IV drug use. Jan. 22, 2019.
- Innovations in Clinical Ethics: A Working Un-Conference. The ethicist’s role in moral distress. Feb. 1, 2019.
Traditional ethics conferences often focus on theoretical, less practical topics. In contrast, the "Unconference" prioritizes abstracts and sessions that aim to propel the field forward, and to address practical problems facing the field.
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