Developing Organizational Diversity Statements Through Dialogical Clinical Ethics Support: The Role of the Clinical Ethicist

Abstract

In pluralist societies, stakeholders in healthcare may have different experiences of and moral perspectives on health, well-being, and good care. Increasing cultural, religious, sexual, and gender diversity among both patients and healthcare professionals requires healthcare organizations to address these differences. Addressing diversity, however, comes with inherent moral challenges; for example, regarding how to deal with healthcare disparities between minoritized and majoritized patients or how to accommodate different healthcare needs and values. Diversity statements are an important strategy for healthcare organizations to define their normative ideas with respect to diversity and to establish a point of departure for concrete diversity approaches. We argue that healthcare organizations ought to develop diversity statements in a participatory and inclusive way in order to promote social justice. Furthermore, we maintain that clinical ethicists can support healthcare organizations in developing diversity statements in a more participatory way by fostering reflective dialogues through clinical ethics support. We will use a case example from our own practice to explore what such a developmental process may look like. We will critically reflect on the procedural strengths and challenges as well as on the role of the clinical ethicist in this example.