Healing is sought by all people at some time during life’s journey. Yet, in health care, the focus on measurable outcomes as the means to define the system’s success results in a drift away from the traditional and contemporary sources of healing and a holistic vision of health. In the tension, we see that both residents’/patients’ and health care providers’ humanity is diminished, and the healing potential of human encounter is lost. Can we revive a more fulsome healing in the deeply personal encounters that are the hallmark of quality health care even when success is measured in empirical terms?
The thoughtful application and practice of ethical reflections offers a chance for modern health care to look beyond a reductionistic focus and to instead renew its vision to include the very human desire for healing and wholeness, even amid physical land mental crises. This conference explores a renewed vision of healing by addressing the people, places and practices of health care from an ethical perspective.