SDEST: Doctoral Dissertation Research: An ethnography of the social ethics of Catholic healthcare

University Of California-San Francisco, San Francisco CA

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation project is a multi-sited ethnographic analysis of the interplay of Catholic social ethics and technological advances in healthcare science at the fourth largest US hospital system. This 48-facility corporation is the flagship of Catholic healthcare but serves diverse California constituencies. This project investigates situations where developments in medical science and technology result in conflicting ethics and value systems between Catholic hospitals and the communities they care for. It seeks to understand how these values are articulated and how conflicting demands are negotiated between people and between organizational structures. This research will focus on how values affect actual behavior within institutions and how policy is developed to respond to conflicting values systems. Ethnographic research methods in this 15 month project include: 1) daily participant observation in meetings and hospital practice, 2) modified life history interviews with 10-15 informants involved in ethics issues and policy design, 3) review and analysis of documents produced by the hospital system since 1997. Field sites reflect an explicit effort to work in facilities where new technologies challenge operative value systems, as in secular hospitals now affiliated with the Catholic system. This research will contribute to the study of science and religious pluralism, particularly how ethics and social values affect group behavior. The results will be of interest to bioethicists, theologians, healthcare service providers and policy makers, and community groups working with faith-based organizations.