Ethical Complexities in Capacity Evaluations for Pregnant Patients 

Psychiatry Grand Rounds AY23
Speaker: Allison McCarthy, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Core Faculty, Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society
Vanderbilt University Medical Center Institute
The activity is designed to help the learner
1. Describe the ethical commitments that guide medical care of pregnant patients
2. Distinguish questions about whether a pregnant patient has decision-making capacity from other ethically relevant questions in the care of pregnant patients
3. Apply ethical commitments that guide medical care of pregnant patients to capacity evaluations
Summary
We have seen an uptick in ethics consults around decision-making by pregnant patients. In such cases, teams often ask whether the patient has decisional capacity, a question psychiatry is frequently tasked with answering. Using some recent cases, this grand rounds examines the intersection of ethics, decisional capacity, and pregnancy.
www.vumc.org/p...