Bishop creates new medical ethics board

Group to give input on health care issues, Catholic teaching

By Joyce Coronel | Nov. 3, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted established a medical ethics board last month to advise clergy, health care providers and the faithful on health care issues in light of Catholic moral teaching.

The panel of seven physicians and a nurse will be led by
Fr. John Ehrich, who in September was appointed by the bishop as director of Medical Ethics for the Phoenix Diocese. The Catholic Medical Ethics Board will soon begin quarterly meetings at the Diocesan Pastoral Center.

Fr. Ehrich, who received his licentiate in moral theology with a specialization in bioethics from the Accademia Alfonsiana in Rome two years ago, is already well connected with the medical community in the Valley.

Since his return to Phoenix, Fr. Ehrich has become the chaplain to the Catholic Medical Association, a national organization, as well as the Catholic Physicians’ Guild of Phoenix. For two years, he served as Bishop Olmsted’s representative on the ethics committee at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center.

The formation of the Catholic Medical Ethics Board was announced Oct. 12 in an e-mail addressed to priests, deacons, religious and Catholic Healthcare West, as well as various local hospitals.

“The board will look at how to engage the various issues related to medical ethics and health care in the diocese,” Fr. Ehrich said. “As a board they will make recommendations to the bishop and assist in working with the different health care institutions.”

The board will help health care professionals learn how to provide care for patients while respecting their Catholic beliefs. 

Committed Catholic doctors

Frank Agnone, an internal medicine physician and one of those appointed by Bishop Olmsted to serve on the board, said the group will bring together a body of committed Catholic health care practitioners with the experience necessary to deal with life-and-death issues.

“The Catholic Medical Ethics Board will serve a crucial role in unraveling medical ethical dilemmas, by applying the beautifully nuanced precepts of our Magisterium safeguarding the sanctity of life,” Agnone said.

From genetic engineering to cryonics, the progressively empowering effects of technology must ultimately be subject to the will of God, which has been revealed, Agnone said. The will of God, he added “can only be properly discerned and applied through the teachings and traditions of His Church.”

Phoenix leads the way

Bishop Olmsted announced the formation of the board to those who attended the annual White Mass and dinner Oct. 16.

“It seemed to me with all the complexities that we face in the medical profession, it would be very helpful to have not only the expertise of a theologian, but also the clinical experience of the board members,” he said.

Fr. William Grogan, an attorney who serves on a Catholic medical ethics board in the Archdiocese of Chicago, said he knows of no other diocese that has a board similar to Phoenix. 

Chicago’s board consists of mostly priests, two of whom are also physicians. They deal mainly with the 22 Catholic hospitals as well as numerous other Catholic health care facilities, Fr. Grogan said.

Fr. Thomas Knoblach, the bioethics consultant for the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minn., said a diocesan medical ethics board could help provide a unified, Catholic approach to the various ethical issues that arise in hospitals, hospice facilities, nursing homes and long-term care institutions.

“It would provide a unified approach to issues such as pregnancy, end of life, artificial reproductive technologies and genetic medicine as well as some of the organizational issues that arise,” Fr. Knoblach said.

“Even if there are no particular issues to address, it’s important to establish a working relationship of trust and dialogue with the understanding that everyone has the best interests of the patient at heart,” he added. “The difficulty arises in making prudential decisions about the moral commitments we share.”

Promoting Church teaching

Fr. Ehrich, who is also pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Phoenix, is working to establish a Web site for the medical ethics board. In the meantime, he has posted a number of helpful links on his parish’s Web site, www.staphx.org.

One of those links is to the Bioethics Defense Fund, a law and policy organization that addresses many of the same issues the medical ethics board will likely face.

Nikolas Nikas, president and general counsel of BDF, applauded Bishop Olmsted for establishing the panel.

“As new medical advances emerge, the Church is sometimes faced with difficult questions of finding the moral way forward,” Nikas said.

“The medical ethics board, by applying eternal and general moral truths about inherent human dignity to specific patients, will allow medical professionals to always provide loving care to patients in a way that protects the God-given dignity of human life, always consistent with the Gospel of Life proclaimed by the Lord and safeguarded by the Church,” he said.