A Clinical Ethicist
6/2/202640 min
Untangling who gets to speak for a dying patient, weighing a treatment's benefits against its burdens, and searching for clarity in the grayest corners of healthcare with Esther Berkowitz, a clinical ethicist. What is the "dignity of risk"? And how do you know which "version" of a person to trust?
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Heath· Host0:00
Hey, folks. I just wanna say at the top here that this episode deals with some heavy themes like death and suicide, so keep that in mind if you're listening with kids. An ethicist is someone who studies morality. You know, what's right, what's wrong, how we ought to act. A clinical ethicist does that work in the middle of a hospital, where the questions they have to address are heartbreakingly real and high-stakes. Questions like, who should make decisions for a patient in a coma? When should a doctor honor a patient's wish to stop treatment? These can be excruciating dilemmas, which got me wondering. There was surely a career that you could have done that would have featured more giggles- [laughing] ... more lightness. Like, what do you think it was about you that propelled you into this fraught moral domain?
Esther Berkowitz· Guest0:56
Um, I love grappling with tough questions. [gentle music] I think that for me, the joy in life isn't necessarily the giggles part, it's the making sense of life part.
Dan Heath· Host1:13
Hmm.
Esther Berkowitz· Guest1:13
The integration of all the bits of life that make it meaningful.
Dan Heath· Host1:17
Esther Berkowitz is a clinical ethicist at a large hospital system in the US. She says for her, the search for meaning began as a kid with conversations around the dinner table.