Nathan Carlin

The Brewsters: A new resource for interprofessional ethics education

Background: One of the barriers to interprofessional ethics education is a lack of resources that actively engage students in reflection on living an ethical professional life. This project implemented and evaluated an innovative resource for interprofessional ethics education. Objectives: The objective of this project was to create and evaluate an interprofessional learning activity on professionalism, clinical ethics, and research ethics. Design: The Brewsters is a choose-your-own-adventure novel that addresses professionalism, clinical ethics, and research ethics. For the pilot of the book, a pre-test/post-test design was used. Once implemented across campus, a post-test was used to evaluate student learning in addition to a student satisfaction survey. Participants and research context: A total of 755 students in six academic schools in a health science center completed the activity as part of orientation or in coursework. Ethical considerations: The project was approved as exempt by the university’s Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects. Findings: The pilot study with 112 students demonstrated a significant increase in student knowledge. The 755 students who participated in the project had relatively high knowledge scores on the post-test and evaluated the activity positively. Discussion: Students who read The Brewsters scored well on the post-test and had the highest scores on clinical ethics. Clinical ethics scores may indicate issues encountered in mass media. Conclusion: The Brewsters is an innovative resource for teaching interprofessional ethics and professionalism. Further work is needed to determine whether actual and long-term behavior is affected by the activity.

Reflections for Clinical Pastoral Education Students in Psychiatric Settings

This article focuses on Donald Capps’s books on mental illness. In doing so I highlight three key insights from Capps that I have applied in my own ministry with persons with mental illness in various psychiatric hospitals. These insights, together with my own experience as a chaplain, lead to three practical lessons for clinical pastoral education students in psychiatric settings. I provide some context for my interest in mental illness and my friendship with Capps, as well as some background regarding how Capps’s writings on mental illness fit with certain broader themes in his own work as a pastoral theologian. This essay is personal throughout.

A Pastoral Theological Reading of Middlesex

This chapter invites pastoral theologians to begin thinking about intersex conditions, about how theology and practice might be rethought in light of intersex advocacy. Pastoral theology, with its experience-near orientation, is in a unique position to contribute to discussions of inter-sex advocacy in that pastoral theology offers a blending of theological inquiry and psychological sophistication. This chapter offers pastoral theological reflection on intersex conditions by focusing on a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. Eugenides is the author of three best-selling novels: The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex, and The Marriage Plot.1 He gained widespread acclaim after the publication of his first novel, and his second novel, Middlesex, won the Pulitzer Prize.