The Gift: Ethically Indicated Euthanasia in Companion Animal Practice

The majority of companion animals seen by veterinary practitioners will die by euthanasia. Yet euthanasia can be a source of moral stress for veterinary team members, even when ethically indicated. In this discussion, I explore when euthanasia is ethically indicated and discuss the potential impact of ethically indicated euthanasia on veterinary team members. In particular, I challenge the analogy that the veterinarian performing ethically indicated euthanasia is akin to an executioner, arguing that this analogy is both inappropriate and potentially harmful. Finally, I discuss how we can support ourselves and our colleagues in relation to euthanasia, so we can attend to and maximise the welfare of our patients at the end of their lives.

Vulnerability and Resilience in Sensitive Research: The Case of the Quantitative Researcher

The emotional experiences of quantitative researchers, particularly while conducting sensitive research, are largely neglected. This article aims to advance the awareness of possible emotional strains for quantitative researchers engaged in sensitive research. It qualitatively assesses the ethical and emotional experiences of quantitative researchers conducting a study on aging of bereaved parents and people with a physical disability. Based on the detailed minutes of 66 weekly research meetings held during 2015–2017, a thematic analysis of the researchers’ experiences was performed. Our analysis identified two main themes: vulnerability and resilience. We delineate these themes, along with their subthemes and affinity to vicarious traumatization, moral stress, and vicarious posttraumatic growth. The current study is among the first to introduce the emotional and ethical experiences of the quantitative researcher. Tentative recommendations for the advancement of the researcher’s safety and well-being by training, institutional support, self-care skills, and policy development are provided.

Higher Education’s Marketization Impact on EFL Instructor Moral Stress, Identity, and Agency

Higher educational institutions (HEIs) have experienced a dramatic reconceptualization as academia strives to align its organizational design and civic mission with the societal notion that education is obliged to prioritize quantifiable results. The traditionalistic ethos that knowledge is acquired through reason and the pursuit of critical inquiry has been supplanted by a marketized ideology that education is a transactional process. The latter notion fails to foster the development of students’ core competencies. The resulting commodification of education has repurposed HEIs from serving a public good to serving a private good and has impacted institutional policies, program offerings, curriculum design, pedagogy, and instructor and student assessment. English foreign language (EFL) programs face immense pressure to conform to external idealized beliefs concerning appropriate course design and implementation. Such pressure limits instructors’ ability to perform their tasks efficiently. The burden of cultural and institutional constraints and unmanageable expectations has led to myriads of professional and moral stresses that negatively affect EFL instructors’ identity and agency in their occupation. This article explores the marketization of universities and its subsequent impact on EFL instructors. Demands from various stakeholders create moral stress for instructors; influence instructor identity through shaping the perceived, actual, and external ought self; and produce damaging consequences related to diminished instructor agency in the classroom.

Ways to solve the problem of surgical staff training. Proposals of the Russian Society of Surgeons

At present, the state of the staff of surgeons, the quality of their training and skill levels is of great importance. Crisis and stagnation have also affected medical education at all levels of education. At the same time, against the background of a decrease in the influx of young specialists to the service, there is an increase in the average age of Russian surgeons. The reason for the described phenomena lies in the low prestige of the surgical specialty associated with low wages for doctors, which does not correspond to their physical and moral stress. The system of University and continuing medical education is far from perfect, which leads to a decrease in the quality of specialist training, and a setback in the introduction of new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies in patients with surgical diseases. The publication of this article is an invitation to all interested parties to a discussion dedicated to finding solutions to training in surgery.

Preliminary Exploration of Swine Veterinarian Perspectives of On-Farm Euthanasia

Euthanasia is a critical component in swine production and veterinarians play an important role in euthanasia protocol development and training. This study aimed to understand veterinarian involvement in and perspectives on euthanasia on pig farms. An online survey was disseminated both at a pig welfare conference and online via a veterinarian e-newsletter. Twenty-five veterinarians participated in the survey. The majority of respondents indicated that caretakers are the individuals making euthanasia decisions and performing the task (n = 17, 68% and 22, 88%, respectively). The majority (22, 88%) of respondents indicated that most of the facilities with which they work have a written euthanasia protocol, and 72% (18) indicated that they assisted in protocol development. Only half of respondents (13, 52%) agreed that “all employees performing euthanasia have been trained adequately”, and 80% (20) identified an interest in delivering more training. Less than half the respondents indicated that strategies for coping with “personal stress” and “emotional wellness” (12, 48%) were included in euthanasia training. While the moral stress of performing euthanasia is recognized, there is opportunity for addressing mental well-being in euthanasia resources. Although preliminary, this study supports the need for further euthanasia training on-farm, involving veterinarians in the process.

The impact of moral attentiveness on manager’s turnover intent

Purpose With the rise in public awareness of corporate social responsibility, business leaders are increasingly expected to recognize the needs and demands of multiple stakeholders. There may, however, be unintended consequences of this expectation for organizational managers who engage these needs and demands with a high level of moral attentiveness. This study aims to investigate the indirect effect of managerial moral attentiveness on managerial turnover intent, serially mediated by moral dissonance and moral stress. Design/methodology/approach Multi-phase survey data were collected from 130 managers within a large sales organization regarding experiences of moral dissonance and moral stress. The authors analyzed the relation of these experiences to measures of moral attentiveness and turnover intent using structural equation modeling. Findings Results support a serial mediation model, with a positive, indirect effect between moral attentiveness and turnover intent among managers through moral dissonance and moral stress. Overall, the results suggest that expecting business leaders to be morally attentive may result in greater moral dissonance and moral stress, potentially impacting their intentions to stay with the organization. Practical implications Implementing positive practices toward processing moral dissonance and reducing moral stress may be a mechanism toward retaining ethically inclined organizational leaders. Originality/value This study is the first to identify moral attentiveness as an antecedent to turnover intent within managers. It also establishes the serial mechanisms of moral dissonance and moral stress and provides suggestions on how to retain morally attentive managers by actively managing those mechanisms.

Is it possible to change the destiny of stray animals by legal means?

The article deals with the theory and practice of treatment of stray animals in light of the latest changes in the Russian legislation. The research includes issues of terminology as well as the place of the function of treatment of stray animals in the system of municipal administration functions. The authors prove the unreasonableness of the strategy of returning stray animals sterilized in shelters to the habitat, argue in favor of measures for development of legal liability for violation of the legislation on treatment of stray animals, measures for registration (record) of such animals, the importance of transition to standards of circular economy in the field of waste management, measures for development of culture and education. It is proved that only a set of economic, legal and other measures can lead to success. Decrease in the number of stray animals will lead to the improvement of the sanitary situation in cities, lower the risk of bites and diseases transmitted with their help, and reduce the number of offenses related to cruelty to animals, car accidents involving stray animals, as well as cases of moral stress for children who daily observe suffering of stray cats and dogs.

Moral Distress among Disaster Responders: What is it?

Introduction:Current research of moral distress is mainly derived from challenges within high-resource health care settings, and there is lack of clarity among the different definitions. Disaster responders are prone to a range of moral challenges during the work, which may give rise to moral distress. Further, organizations have considered increased drop-out rates and sick leaves among disaster responders as consequences of moral distress. Therefore, initiatives have been taken to address and understand the impacts of moral distress and its consequences for responders. Since there is unclarity among the different definitions, a first step is to understand the concept of moral distress and its interlinkages within the literature related to disaster responders.Hypothesis/Problem:To examine how disaster responders are affected by moral challenges, systematic knowledge is needed about the concepts related to moral distress. This paper aims to elucidate how the concept of moral distress in disaster response is defined and explained in the literature.Methods:The paper opted to systematically map the existing literature through the methods of a scoping review. The searches derived documents which were screened regarding specific inclusion criteria. The included 16 documents were analyzed and collated according to their definitions of moral distress or according to their descriptions of moral distress.Results:The paper provides clarity among the different concepts and definitions of moral distress within disaster response. Several concepts exist that describe the outcomes of morally challenging situations, centering on situations when individuals are prevented from acting in accordance with their moral values. Their specific differences suggest that to achieve greater clarity in future work, moral stress and moral distress should be distinguished.Conclusion:Based on the findings, a conceptual model of the development of moral distress was developed, which displays a manifestation of moral distress with the interplay between the responder and the context. The overview of the different concepts in this model can facilitate future research and be used to illuminate how the concepts are interrelated.

Philosophy of a “Good Death” in Small Animals and Consequences for Euthanasia in Animal Law and Veterinary Practice

Moral stress is a major concern in veterinary practice. Often, it is associated with the challenges in end-of-life situations. Euthanasia, however, is also meant to bring relief to animal patients and their owners. The reasons for the moral strain euthanizing animals causes to professional veterinarians need to be further clarified. This article investigates “euthanasia” from a philosophical, legal, and practical perspective. After introducing relevant aspects of euthanasia in small animal practice, the term is analyzed from an ethical point of view. That includes both a broad and a narrow definition of “euthanasia” and underlying assumptions regarding different accounts of animal death and well-being. Then, legal and soft regulations are discussed with regard to the theoretical aspects and practical challenges, also including questions of personal morality. It is argued that the importance of ethical definitions and assumptions concerning euthanasia and their intertwinement with both law and practical challenges should not be neglected. The conclusion is that veterinarians should clarify the reasons for their potential discomfort and that they should be supported by improved decision-making tools, by implementation of theoretical and practical ethics in veterinary education, and by updated animal welfare legislation.