Workshop: Patient and Family Rights

This course aims to provide the student with the basic concepts to be able to deal with the topic of the rights of the sick person and his or her family. After providing a general introduction to the main ethical approaches at play in this context, the ethics of rights and the ethics of care, the course focuses on four fundamental ethical pillars: the right to self-determination,operationalized through informed consent; truthfulness, to be balanced with the imperative and communication of hope; the ethical principles of transparency of information and processes of care; and of inclusiveness (i.e. the inclusion of the patient and his or her family in the care pathway); and finally the requirements of accompaniment and respect for the sick person in her illness experience. These issues will be discussed through specific case studies representative of the various realities of the patient person (e.g., the elderly person, the person with cognitive impairment, the cancer patient, etc.).

This course aims to promote in learners the development of substantive and procedural skills. From a substantive point of view, it is aimed at imparting knowledge with respect to fundamental macro-concepts of the ethical-clinical literature, with a focus on the most applied aspects of the same: the interaction of the patient with health professionals and, within the dyad of care, the interaction of the patient with his/her caregivers. From a procedural point of view, this course aims to promote in the learners reflective skills and development of critical thinking, on the one hand by helping them applying theoretical concepts to concrete realities, and on the other hand by exercising them in the practice of reading and presenting scientific articles on the topic at hand.