A Place of His Own: Applying Dignity of Risk to Bioethics Consultation

Hospitals have both a regulatory and an ethical mandate to craft a safe discharge plan for all patients. These plans can become a source of conflict between clinicians and patients when they have differing conceptions of safety and best interests. In bioethics principles this conflict can be characterized as the tension between the patient's right to make medical decisions in accordance with their values, or autonomy, and the clinician's obligation to provide best care to their patients, or beneficence. Employed independently, these principles can be limiting and may not accommodate the nuanced narrative of patients who lack decisional capacity but have expressed clear preferences about where they wish to live. Utilizing case-based discussion, this article explores how the inclusion of Robert Perske's dignity of risk principal in bioethics consultation can support clinicians in expanding their conceptions of beneficence and safety, providing the team with the freedom to craft discharge plans that keep the patient at the center of the narrative.