Mission
Our mission is to seek to improve the health and well-being of the diverse communities that make up North Texas by informing them about the application of ethical values to current healthcare issues through educational programming and advocacy efforts that encourage civil conversation and dialog.
About the Consortium
The Tarrant County Academy of Medicine's Ethics Consortium functions under the auspices of the Tarrant County Medical Society. However, unlike other medical society committees, many of its members come from outside the parent organization. This is intentional. We believe that medical ethics is a community endeavor and, as such, requires engagement from the larger community to be effective. To that end, our members include not just physicians but lawyers, chaplains, nurses, social workers, educators (both medical and non-medical, e.g., school of business and education) and health care administrators to name a few. Our monthly meetings cover a wide range of topics relevant to the ethical practice of medicine in our community. The discussions are robust, informative and occasionally result in community engagements via op-ed articles or educational programming. May of these initiatives are ad hoc, but we also offer an annual symposium called Healthcare in a Civil Society.
What is Health Care in a Civil Society?
Healthcare in a Civil Society in a half-day CME event sponsored by the Tarrant County Academy of Medicine's Ethics Consortium. We seek to provide a forum to discuss topics relevant to healthcare in our community. We expect the issues discussed to be timely but know that they may be controversial. By providing a forum in which knowledgeable leaders representing a variety of professional perspectives and viewpoints talk openly and honestly about the problems before us, we seek to engage participants in dialogue in the hope that we might learn from one another and implement positive change in our circles of influence. We believe that such dialogue is critical for us to build a solid foundation for healthcare in out community.
Our first event came on the heels of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Recognizing that what most people heard was coming from sound bites carefully constructed by the extremes from both liberal and conservative perspectives we created a space where participants could rationally examine a variety of viewpoints and arrive at their own conclusions. Subsequent forums have maintained the civil dialogue as we have continued to examine the consequential issues impacting public health, with an emphasis on the healthcare professional's role in society.
Program Topics
2024: The Impact of Corporatization in Healthcare
2023: Conscientious Objection in Healthcare
2022: Polarization and the Erosion of Public Trust in Healthcare
2021: (Re)building a Culture of communication in the New Normal (virtual)
2020: Patient Autonomy and the Common Good
2019: Provider Wellbeing: Impact on Healthcare
2018: Reducing the Cost of Care
2017: Improving the Health of Populations
2016: Improving the Experience of Care
2014: Who's Accountable for Your Health? (Presented as the PPACA was being implemented)
Join Today!
If you are a physician interested in health care and ethics, we invite you to join your fellow Tarrant County Medical Society physicians in the next meeting.
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