Moral distress as a reason for ethics consultation is common, but perceived or real racism is underrecognized as a potential cause. The consultation requested in this case was nominally for moral distress, but elements of cultural misunderstanding and culturally relevant value conflicts rapidly became apparent. Cultural concordance between the ethics consultant and the patient’s family enhanced communication and allowed the medical care team to change their perspective on interactions they had observed and previously considered to be belittling between family members and staff. This led to a broadening of medically permissible options being considered and ultimately resulted in a discharge plan that was acceptable and welcome by both the patient’s family and the ICU staff. Further discussion of reasons why greater diversity in ethics consultation members may be helpful.

This chapter illustrates a challenging clinical ethics case involving a twenty-something trauma patient experiencing dysphagia who declined recommendations for artificial nutrition and wanted to be allowed to take food and fluid by mouth. Capacity assessment was complicated by disagreements over clinical facts. The Ethics consultation process was impacted by limited consultant bandwidth and lack of institutional support. Moral distress was experienced by many team members including clinical ethicists who found themselves wondering how this consult went wrong, and whether withholding food from a decisionally capable patient was in fact within the rights of the healthcare team.

This chapter examines the evolution of concert programming practices among nineteenth-century musicians, focusing on Robert and Clara Schumanns’ approaches within changing cultural, financial, aesthetic, geographical, and technological contexts. Drawing on concert programmes, personal correspondence, and historical reviews, the chapter identifies shifts from genre-spanning miscellany programmes to more homogeneous recitals emphasizing what would become the classical canon and standardized repertoires. Clara is shown to have used programming strategically to promote her husband’s music and her own artistic identity, while Robert’s programming reflected both his aspirations, as well as his vulnerabilities and limited practical skills. These practices had significant implications for gender roles, artistic autonomy, and the dissemination of music during the period. Overall, the Schumanns’ practices underscore how concert programming shaped musical reception and professional identity, highlighting its enduring influence on modern concert management and programming strategies.

The authors discuss haunting aspects resulting from a request for ethics consultation to support surrogate decision-maker authorization of long-acting reversible contraception in an individual with disabilities. The authors highlight the ethical tension between procreative freedom and equitable access to contraception, particularly noting ableism underlying each side of the argument. Bringing in prior case law, the authors favor a least-restrictive approach to contraception to best preserve the individual’s reproductive rights.

The narrative of the chapter explores haunting aspects of a patient’s inability to participate in capacity assessment due to communication challenges and generalized weakness. Through relying on prior wishes and historical context provided by the surrogate decision-maker, the ethical analysis presented by the authors demonstrates expressed concern with the surrogate decision-maker’s request for long-acting reversible contraception. As the consultation progresses to the patient’s assent to an informal arrangement of supported decision-making, each author shares their professional reflections on issues including equity, diversity and inclusion with a keen focus on ableism in the care of individuals with disabilities. While it may be legally permissible as well as ethically supportable to permit for surrogate decision-maker authorization of long-acting reversible contraception through supported decision-making, the authors grapple with whether the decision honored the patient’s values.

In rejecting allegory, Martin Luther rejected far more than a verbal technique of biblical interpretation. He rejected a conception of the nature of revelation and the modes by which God communicated with humankind. He rejected William Durand’s sense of the interreferentiality of Scripture and Creation. Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Martin Bucer, Uly Anders, and Claus Hottinger all rejected an understanding of revelation as mediated through the made world. In so doing, they also rejected Durand’s sense of the made world mediating time. And in doing that, they reconceived just what worship was and what it did.

This chapter surveys contemporary responses to the Schumanns across a variety of artistic media: music, dance, theatre, visual arts, and literature. It argues that while these can be opportunities for reflecting historical affinities and differences, artists typically reflect the myths surrounding these musicians, rather than engaging with current research. While Robert Schumann has become a cipher for mental illness, his relationship with Clara Schumann née Wieck, and the couple’s relationship with Johannes Brahms, have also attracted a great deal of attention. Responses to the Schumanns have also reflected broader trends in artistic practice, including the theatricalization of concert music, the mash-up, and ‘composed reception’ (musical responses to stylistic aspects of their works). The Schumanns both represent the past but also provide artists with opportunities for imaginative time travel, to reassess and in some ways reinvent their present.

There is little written about ethics consultation in a post-acute environment. Applying ethics consultation expectations from the acute care world would be a disservice to the healthcare continuum and those that support the homecare environment. This chapter aims to expose the challenges that face those caring for patients as guests in their home, in order to open a much-needed dialogue and opportunity for bidirectional learning that ensures these voices are represented. A home-based hospice team requests an ethics consult for a patient that they deem is "unsafe" for the staff to continue to care for. Staff distress arose in a recent joint visit with nursing and social work when there were persons who were described as being aggressive. This case consult went sideways very quickly. The leadership for the team caring for the patient came with a preconceived notion of the outcome and verbalized feeling untrusted by the ethics committee. Similarly, the ethics committee was divided on the case and committee members verbalized “giving up” when a consensus could not be reached. Members of the ethics committee reflect on the various haunting aspects - both individually and collectively - and the need to balance patient rights and staff safety in a post-acute environment. This case brought about significant organizational changes in ethics consultation, which are shared with the reader.

This chapter examines four common immediate causes of wrongful convictions as confirmed by recent data from registries. They are mistaken eyewitness identification, incentivized and lying witnesses, false confessions and faulty forensics. Commonly used remedies designed to prevent these immediate causes are examined from a legal process perspective, which stresses the different remedies that can be implemented by courts, legislatures and through executive measures. The latter includes reforms that police and forensic science providers can take themselves to decrease the risk of causing wrongful convictions. The most effective strategies often involve all three branches of government. At the same time, many jurisdictions are reluctant to adopt optimal reform measures because of concerns about preventing the use of evidence that is frequently used to achieve convictions. For example, the use of jailhouse informants has not been banned despite their frequent role in wrongful convictions. This insight suggests that reforms to prevent wrongful conviction cannot ignore their perceived or likely impact on conviction rates.

The second part of this book opens with a title page (Figure 21). In itself, a title page marks one of the many changes that lie between William Durand’s Rationale and the sixteenth century. It belongs to book markets: something that a passer-by might see in a printer’s shop and decide to purchase. Durand’s Rationale was first a manuscript; it, too, came to be printed – in 1459 – one of the earliest medieval works to be printed using moveable type. Print, as we shall see, is also very much a part of our story.