Healthcare Chaplaincy Ethics Flashcards
7 cards from real ACC practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Healthcare Chaplaincy Ethics flashcards as text
A chaplain is offered a significant gift by a grateful patient's family after a long hospitalization. The most ethically appropriate response is to:
Answer: Decline graciously and explain the institution's gift policy
Most healthcare institutions prohibit accepting personal gifts from patients or families to avoid conflicts of interest; declining with explanation is appropriate.
Which document most directly guides the ethical conduct of board-certified chaplains in the United States?
Answer: The APC Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
The Association of Professional Chaplains (APC) Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct is the primary ethical framework for certified chaplains.
A chaplain notices that a patient's DNR order was placed without the patient's full understanding. Ethically, the chaplain should:
Answer: Raise the concern with the attending physician or patient advocate
Chaplains serve as patient advocates by raising informed-consent concerns to the appropriate members of the care team.
During an ethics committee meeting, the chaplain's unique contribution is best described as:
Answer: Voicing the patient's spiritual, cultural, and values-based perspective
Chaplains bring the patient's existential, spiritual, and values context to interdisciplinary ethics discussions.
A nurse asks a chaplain to pray with a patient in a way that reflects the nurse's own religious beliefs rather than the patient's. The chaplain should:
Answer: Center the prayer on the patient's own beliefs and spiritual language
The chaplain's primary obligation is to the patient's spiritual wellbeing and expressed beliefs, not to the preferences of colleagues.
An ethics concept known as 'double effect' is relevant in chaplaincy when:
Answer: Palliative medication may hasten death while primarily intending to relieve suffering
The doctrine of double effect addresses situations where an intended good action may have a foreseeable harmful secondary effect, such as palliative sedation.
When a patient invokes their religious tradition to justify a decision the chaplain personally finds morally troubling, the chaplain's primary obligation is to:
Answer: Respect the patient's autonomy while maintaining professional boundaries
Respecting patient autonomy requires chaplains to set aside personal moral reactions and support the patient's self-determined spiritual choices.