ETHICA—ETHICs in Action: Values, Dilemmas, and Decision-Making in Contemporary Healthcare
A special issue of Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032). This special issue belongs to the section "Healthcare Organizations, Systems, and Providers".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 September 2026 | Viewed by 2272
Editors
2. Department of Health Care Surveillance and Bioethics, Section of Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo F. Vito 1, 00168 Rome, Italy
Interests: research ethics; research ethics committees; ethics of resources allocation; clinical ethics
2. Research Centre for Clinical Bioethics & Medical Humanities, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy
Interests: health technology assessment; ethics; bioethics; research ethics; clinical research
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue originates from the ETHICA Project, “Ethics in Action: values, dilemmas, and decision-making in contemporary healthcare,” promoted by the Department of Healthcare Surveillance and Bioethics, Section of Bioethics and Medical Humanities, “A. Gemelli” School of Medicine, in collaboration with the Research Centre for Clinical Bioethics and Medical Humanities, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy.
ETHICA is a collaborative research initiative that explores how ethical reasoning is enacted, sustained, and challenged within both clinical and organizational contexts. The project has been carried out by scholars from the two abovementioned institutions, integrating complementary expertise in bioethics, clinical practice, law, and the social sciences.
The primary aim of this Special Issue is to present the outcomes and insights generated within ETHICA, with particular attention to the ways in which values, dilemmas, and ethical decision-making shape contemporary healthcare practices.
Specifically, the contributions included will accomplish the following:
- Investigate how ethical principles are integrated into healthcare decision-making, both at the bedside and within broader institutional frameworks;
- Analyse the tools, processes, and cultural conditions that foster or hinder ethically sound practices;
- Explore the role of Clinical Ethics Support Services (CESSs), stakeholder experiences (patients, families, and professionals), and the impact of ethics consultation on the quality of care;
- Address systemic and organizational aspects of ethics in healthcare, as well as innovative approaches—such as the use of narrative and literature—to enrich moral imagination and professional empathy.
By fostering a multidisciplinary conversation rooted in the findings of the project, we aim to contribute to the development of healthcare systems that are not only clinically effective but also ethically attentive, value-driven, and responsive to the human experience of illness and care.
We look forward to your contributions.
Prof. Dr. Antonio Gioacchino Spagnolo
Dr. Pietro Refolo
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Publisher’s Notice
As stated above, the central purpose of this Special Issue is to present research from the ETHICA Project, “Ethics in Action: values, dilemmas, and decision-making in contemporary healthcare”. Given this purpose, the Guest Editors’ contribution to this Special Issue may be greater than standard Special Issues published by MDPI. Further details on MDPI's Special Issue guidelines can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/special_issues_guidelines. The Editorial Office and Editor-in-Chief of Healthcare have approved this and MDPI’s standard manuscript editorial processing procedure (https://www.mdpi.com/editorial_process) will be applied to all submissions. As per our standard procedure, Guest Editors are excluded from participating in the editorial process for their submission and/or for submissions from persons with whom a potential conflict of interest may exist. More details on MDPI’s Conflict of Interest policy for reviewers and editors can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/ethics#_bookmark22.
Keywords
- clinical ethics
- healthcare decision-making
- moral dilemmas
- clinical ethics consultation
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