Eric Swirsky receives grant to study moral distress intervention

The interprofessional research team (Cristiana Hentea, MD MA MS; Torie Johnson, MD MPH; Kristi Kirschner, MD; Eric Swirsky, JD MA MHPE) will develop and test the efficacy of Facilitated Ethics Conversations (FECs) as an intervention for hidden curricular moral distress in health professions education. FECs are discussion-based interventions designed to identify and address moral distress, and there is evidence of their effectiveness in in-patient work settings. FECs fit into Swirsky’s Unified Moral Distress Framework as past research provides evidence for relationships between moral identity, moral agency, and moral perception of health care workers, and promotion of skills that improve self-efficacy and  perceptions of work environment.