Engaging Vaccine Hesitant Patients: An Ethics Approach

ABSTRACT

Vaccine hesitancy has been presented as a great obstacle to the "end of COVID." The large groups of protestors and low compliance have created tensions between groups of individuals. Healthcare providers have expressed anger and frustration to have unvaccinated individuals arrive at the emergency department in deteriorating conditions when these severe conditions could have been prevented. However, patient-centered care advocates that the patient's voice and values are acknowledged. Vaccine hesitancy, vaccine defiance, and mistrust of the medical profession have been continuous and recurrent phenomena. There are many instances in which medical research and technology occurred at the exploitation of marginalized groups. The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment is well known but others have been obscured. Indeed, ethicists acknowledge that moral objections to questionable research methods can be overturned in cases of emergency. Patients do have their own reasons why they may be vaccine hesitant despite acknowledging that vaccination is necessary. This presentation will present an ethics methodology approach to encourage collaboration between opposing groups. Reasons for both vaccine hesitancy and vaccine support will be presented. The goal is to provide respiratory students and professionals with additional tools to approach vaccine-hesitant patients so that future confrontations are collaborative and proactive. Recommended methods on how to approach and challenging patients on their values can help guide difficult discussions around vaccinations and mistrust in healthcare.