Practical, Ethical, and Legal Considerations at the End of Life
Course #67640 -
- Participation Instructions
- Review the course material online or in print.
- Complete the course evaluation.
- Review your Transcript to view and print your Certificate of Completion. Your date of completion will be the date (Pacific Time) the course was electronically submitted for credit, with no exceptions. Partial credit is not available.
Behavioral health professionals often support patients and families through some of the hardest decisions of the end of life. This course covers the practical, ethical, and legal considerations that shape that work. It begins with the burdens on family caregivers and surrogate decision makers, the legal standards that govern surrogate decisions, and the role of advance care planning, including psychiatric advance directives and the limits on behavioral health professionals' scope of practice. The course also covers culturally responsive end-of-life care, including cultural humility and the legal and clinical importance of professional interpreters. It closes with the specific considerations for patients with dementia, children and adolescents, people with intellectual or developmental disabilities or serious mental illness, and LGBTQ+ patients.
This introductory course is designed for psychologists involved in the care of clients at the end of life.
The purpose of this course is to give psychologists the knowledge and skills to handle the practical, ethical, and legal issues of end-of-life care.
Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:
- Describe surrogate decision-making standards, advance care planning tools, and the scope-of-practice limits that apply to behavioral health professionals in advance care planning.
- Apply the principles of biomedical ethics and discipline-specific ethics codes to end-of-life issues, including decision-making capacity, desire for hastened death and medical aid in dying, confidentiality, elder abuse, professional boundaries, continuity of care, and clinician self-care.
- Outline strategies for culturally responsive end-of-life care, including cultural humility, the appropriate use of professional interpreters, and ethical and legal considerations for special populations at the end of life.
Lisa Hutchison, LMHC, has more than 20 years of experience providing individual and group counseling with adults. She specifically focuses on teaching assertiveness, stress management, and boundary setting for empathic helpers. Ms. Hutchison graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, with a Master’s degree in education for mental health counseling.
Contributing faculty, Lisa Hutchison, LMHC, has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
Margaret Donohue, PhD
The division planner has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
Sarah Campbell
The Director of Development and Academic Affairs has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.
The purpose of NetCE is to provide challenging curricula to assist healthcare professionals to raise their levels of expertise while fulfilling their continuing education requirements, thereby improving the quality of healthcare.
Our contributing faculty members have taken care to ensure that the information and recommendations are accurate and compatible with the standards generally accepted at the time of publication. The publisher disclaims any liability, loss or damage incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents. Participants are cautioned about the potential risk of using limited knowledge when integrating new techniques into practice.
It is the policy of NetCE not to accept commercial support. Furthermore, commercial interests are prohibited from distributing or providing access to this activity to learners.
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The role of implicit biases on healthcare outcomes has become a concern, as there is some evidence that implicit biases contribute to health disparities, professionals' attitudes toward and interactions with patients, quality of care, diagnoses, and treatment decisions. This may produce differences in help-seeking, diagnoses, and ultimately treatments and interventions. Implicit biases may also unwittingly produce professional behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that reduce patients' trust and comfort with their provider, leading to earlier termination of visits and/or reduced adherence and follow-up. Disadvantaged groups are marginalized in the healthcare system and vulnerable on multiple levels; health professionals' implicit biases can further exacerbate these existing disadvantages.
Interventions or strategies designed to reduce implicit bias may be categorized as change-based or control-based. Change-based interventions focus on reducing or changing cognitive associations underlying implicit biases. These interventions might include challenging stereotypes. Conversely, control-based interventions involve reducing the effects of the implicit bias on the individual's behaviors. These strategies include increasing awareness of biased thoughts and responses. The two types of interventions are not mutually exclusive and may be used synergistically.