Center for Practical Bioethics

Ethics Education and Consultation includes teaching medical students and clinicians; managing the KC Regional Ethics Committee Consortium (now in our 38th year); presenting educational lectures, symposia and workshops; developing and curating resources, including the website which contains more than 4,000 reports, guidelines, policy briefs, program resources, and audio/video recordings of interviews, lectures, and symposia. Education and Consultation also includes leading ethics consultations for healthcare providers and individuals, providing policymaker guidance and teaching at two area medical schools (the University of Kansas Medical Center and Kansas City University).

Emerging Issues and Systems Change includes issues in healthcare that raise ethical concerns and identifies the need for systems change. The current focus is on the policies, individual champion leaders, organizational structures, and community voice that support the responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence-enabled technologies in health and healthcare. The Center's core values of advocacy and justice underpin our actions, programs, and strategies, leading to identification of bias, pressing for representation and diversity, and building equitable delivery of healthcare. Moreover, we passionately attend to and protect the interests of those whose voices have been historically unheard or unheeded in health and healthcare.

Advance Care Planning builds on the Center's legacy work in end-of-life care, focusing on increasing participation in advance care planning in diverse communities. We provide individual consultation and community workshops and disseminate Caring Conversations resources. The Center helps to support providers at various stages of development of the Transportable Physician Orders for Patient Preferences (TPOPP), a bi-state initiative of a national voluntary POLST program. This program seeks to better align treatment plans with goals and values of patients.