a Baylor College of Medicine.
b Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Am J Bioeth. 2018 May;18(5):40-51. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2018.1431702.
Significant challenges arise for clinical care teams when a patient or surrogate decision-maker hopes a miracle will occur. This article answers the question, "How should clinical bioethicists respond when a medical decision-maker uses the hope for a miracle to orient her medical decisions?" We argue the ethicist must first understand the complexity of the miracle-invocation. To this end, we provide a taxonomy of miracle-invocations that assist the ethicist in analyzing the invocator's conceptions of God, community, and self. After the ethicist appreciates how these concepts influence the invocator's worldview, she can begin responding to this hope with specific practices. We discuss these practices in detail and offer concrete recommendations for a justified response to the hope for a miracle.
当患者或代理人决策者希望出现奇迹时，临床护理团队会面临重大挑战。本文回答了这个问题：“当医疗决策制定者利用对奇迹的希望来指导她的医疗决策时，临床生物伦理学家应该如何回应？”我们认为，伦理学家首先必须理解奇迹援引的复杂性。为此，我们提供了一种奇迹援引的分类法，帮助伦理学家分析援引者对上帝、社区和自我的概念。在伦理学家理解这些概念如何影响援引者的世界观之后，她可以开始用具体的实践来回应这种希望。我们详细讨论了这些实践，并为对奇迹的希望做出合理回应提出了具体建议。
