Clinical Ethics: Theory and Practice

There is the world of ideas and the world of practice; the French are often for sup­ pressing the one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. -Matthew Arnold The Function of Criticism at the Present Time From its inception, bioethics has confronted the need to reconcile theory and practice. At first the confrontation was purely intellectual, as writers on ethical theory (within phi­ losophy, theology, or other humanistic disciplines) turned their attention to topics from the world of medical practice. Recently the confrontation has grown more intense. The ap­ pointment of clinical ethicists in hospitals and other health­ care settings is an accelerating trend in North America. Concomitantly, those institutions involved in training peo­ ple in clinical ethics have added organized exposure to the world of practice , in the form of placement requirements, to the normal academic course load. In common with other dis­ ciplines, bioethics has begun to see clinical training as a con­ dition of didactic theory and apprenticeship.