ABSTRACT
The practice of nursing in transplant medicine is often fraught with ethical complexity. It is especially so when children are involved as potential living donors. This is no less true when the donor "child" is of consenting age, and when the intended recipient is the parent. This case is presented by a clinical ethics consultant to whom a nurse turned with her discomfort over the situation faced as a renal transplant coordinator. The part played by ethnicity and traditional Korean culture is highlighted.
Subject(s)
Asian/ethnology , Attitude to Health/ethnology , Conflict, Psychological , Kidney Transplantation , Living Donors , Nuclear Family/ethnology , Acculturation , Adult , Attitude of Health Personnel/ethnology , Beneficence , Coercion , Decision Making/ethics , Emigration and Immigration , Ethics Committees/organization & administration , Humans , Kidney Transplantation/ethics , Kidney Transplantation/ethnology , Korea/ethnology , Living Donors/ethics , Living Donors/psychology , Motivation , Narration , Nursing Staff, Hospital/ethics , Nursing Staff, Hospital/psychology , Parent-Child Relations/ethnology , Paternalism/ethics , Patient Selection , Substance-Related Disorders/ethnologyABSTRACT
The author describes a veterans hospital context of healthcare ministry in which marketplace terminology, adopted institutionally, also impacts the Chaplain Service. He highlights specific elements of this commercialization of pastoral care, such as computerized documentation of "spiritual products" delivered in increments of ten minute units. Noting the power of language both to describe and create realities, the author suggests likely risks accompanying benefits of healthcare chaplaincy carried out on marketplace terms.
