When Patients and Families Express Hope for a Miracle: Bibler and Stahl - Episode 12

How do patients, their families, or their caregivers express hope for a miracle in the clinical setting? How can medical professionals respond to these desires for a miracle to occur? Guests Dr. Devan Stahl, Assistant Professor in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and Department of Pediatrics and Human Development at Michigan State University, and Dr. Trevor Bibler, Assistant Professor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine, have written on this topic, with articles published in the American Journal of Bioethics and the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. In this episode they discuss the framework for categorizing the various ways in which people hope for a miracle, while also drawing from experiences they have had as clinical ethicists. They also discuss the importance of not making assumptions when miracle language is used, emphasizing the need for all religious beliefs to be respected by medical professionals.

This episode was produced and edited by Liz McDaniel in the Center for Ethics. Music: "While We Walk (2004)" by Antony Raijekov via Free Music Archive, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. A full episode transcript is available at bioethics.msu.edu.