Shared Decisions, Shared Meanings, Shared Burdens

Date: 23 October, Friday | Time: 10:30 - 12:00 | Venue: Academia Auditorium

Speakers: Dr Esther Ho, Asst Prof Neo Han Yee, Assoc Prof Aaron Ang, Assoc Prof Thomas Lew
Moderator: Dr Winnie Teo Li-Lian

Programme Description: 

Illness is rarely experienced as a purely biomedical event. It often exposes vulnerability, raises profound questions of meaning, and places clinicians in morally complex situations. This symposium explores these dimensions through the lens of humanistic medicine.

The first presentation examines shared decision making with vulnerable patients. Moving beyond the simplistic autonomy–paternalism binary, it considers how clinicians can support agency while recognising the relational and contextual nature of vulnerability.

The second presentation explores how patients make sense of illness through spiritual and existential frameworks. While medicine excels at diagnosis and treatment, patients frequently struggle with questions of meaning, suffering, and identity—areas where spiritual care and humanistic approaches become essential.

The third presentation turns attention to clinicians themselves. Caring for patients in morally difficult circumstances can shape professional identity in profound ways. Without reflection and support, clinicians risk burnout, cynicism, and moral injury.

We conclude with a panel discussion which also invites dialogue between healthcare professionals and scholars from the humanities. By examining decision-making, meaning-making, and moral formation, the symposium aims to illuminate how medicine can better support both patients living with illness and clinicians striving to care with meaning.

Learning Objective:

1. Recognize the ethical and relational complexities of shared decision making with vulnerable patients.
2. Understand how patients construct meaning in illness through spiritual and existential frameworks.
3. Reflect on how morally challenging clinical work shape’s professional identity and wellbeing.
4. Identify opportunities for collaboration between healthcare professionals and scholars in the humanities.

Target Audience: Suitable for a general audience; experience with clinical care would enrich the participant’s experience.

Maximum Participants: 60 participants