Catawba Valley Medical Center invites healthcare professionals and the community to attend the next ‘Conversations in Ethics’ to be held from 12 noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15 in the Northwest AHEC Lecture Hall, Room 112. This monthly, no-charge meeting provides an opportunity for discussion of some of the most important issues facing the healthcare profession today.

This month’s case study is called “Timmy.” Timmy is a 4-year-old boy who is in a day care center with about 70 children per day. While on the playground one day, Timmy fell, cutting his hand on the sidewalk and causing his nose to bleed. He was brought inside where two of the day care workers attended to his injuries and then transported him to the emergency department (ED) for the stitches his hand required. The parents arrived at about the same time as the day care workers who were transporting Timmy. When Timmy was admitted to the ED, his bleeding and the day care worker’s exposure to it was noted. The day care worker was asked to wait a few minutes. Timmy’s parents historically had been somewhat evasive answering healthcare questions about the child and also seemed somewhat haphazard in medication for routine childhood illnesses. After they met with various hospital officials, Timmy’s parents could be heard shouting in the examining room, although the specific words could not be understood. They soon stormed out of the Emergency Department with their son. The argument in the treatment room occurred because Timmy’s parents were forbidding the healthcare providers to inform the day care workers that Timmy is HIV positive. Among the questions that may be addressed include the following: What is the obligation of the healthcare providers to the day care worker? Does that obligation change if the likelihood of HIV infection is increased? What if the day care employee is pregnant? What is the obligation of confidentiality with regard to the child? What is the obligation of confidentiality to the parents? If the day care learns of the infection, does the facility have an obligation to continue caring for the child? Does the day care facility have an obligation to inform other parents of the child’s condition? What if little Timmy were to bite another child at day care?

A free lunch will be served to those who register no later than Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009 by calling Glenda Fowler at 828/326-3365.

Catawba Valley Medical Center’s Department of Organizational Learning is an approved provider of continuing nursing education by the North Carolina Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. Completion of this activity provides 1.0 contact hour.

Catawba Valley Medical Center is a not-for-profit, public healthcare system providing and promoting the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being of the public in addition to serving as a center for health education, wellness services, preventative medicine and acute care. CVMC, twice recognized by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as a Magnet facility, was recently named as a “Distinguished Hospital for An Outstanding InPatient Experience” by J.D. Power and Associates as well as a Hospital of Choice by the American Alliance of Healthcare Providers.