Skip to content
Primary Navigation

The Hastings Center for Bioethics

  • Who We Are
    • Strategic Plan 2025-2029
    • Mission
    • Team
    • Financials
    • For the Media
    • News
  • What We Do
    • Research
    • Webinars
    • Hastings Bioethics Resources
    • Events
    • Bioethics Careers & Education
    • Newsletter
    • The Bioethics Founders’ Award
    • Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician and Nursing Awards
  • Publications
    • Hastings Center Report
    • Ethics & Human Research
    • Special Reports
    • Hastings Bioethics Forum
    • Bioethics Briefings
    • Books by Hastings Scholars
  • DONATE NOW
    • Other Gift Options
Search The Hastings Center

Medical care ethics

Bioethics Forum Essay
young black doctor talking with a female patient at desk

Grateful Patient Fundraising: Ethically Problematic or Altruistic?

Nonprofit hospitals increasingly rely on philanthropy to supplement decreasing clinical revenues and a decline in the growth of government research funding. Grateful patient fundraising programs, as they are known, employ a strategy in which hospitals seek donations from satisfied patients, often using public data to identify those who are wealthy and requiring their physicians to discuss giving opportunities with them. In a recent issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, 12 physicians discuss their experiences with grateful patient fundraising and take up legal and ethical issues.
Read Grateful Patient Fundraising: Ethically Problematic or Altruistic?
Bioethics Forum Essay
obese patient

Well, There’s Always the Zoo

Our patient, weighing over 600 lbs., was above the weight limit of our hospital system’s scanner tables and those of all the other major medical centers that we called in our large city. What to do next? Our radiology department’s answer was, “Well, there’s always the zoo.”
Read Well, There’s Always the Zoo
The Hastings Center
  • Connect:
  • The Hastings Center on Facebook
  • The Hastings Center on Linkedin
  • The Hastings Center on Twitter / X
  • The Hastings Center on YouTube
  • The Hastings Center on Instagram
  • The Hastings Center on Threads
  • The Hastings Center on Bluesky
  • Send The Hastings Center an Email

Registered 501(c)(3).
EIN: 13-2662222
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

  • Who We Are
    • Strategic Plan 2025-2029
    • Mission
    • Team
    • Financials
    • For the Media
    • News
  • What We Do
    • Research
    • Webinars
    • Hastings Bioethics Resources
    • Events
    • Bioethics Careers & Education
    • Newsletter
    • The Bioethics Founders’ Award
    • Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician and Nursing Awards
  • Publications
    • Hastings Center Report
    • Ethics & Human Research
    • Special Reports
    • Hastings Bioethics Forum
    • Bioethics Briefings
    • Books by Hastings Scholars
  • DONATE NOW
    • Other Gift Options
Never Miss an Article.New Forum posts delivered to your inbox.
Name
yourname@example.com
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
johnsmith@example.com
Interests

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. We never share your private information with third parties.
  • Who We Are
    • Back
    • Strategic Plan 2025-2029
    • Mission
    • Team
    • Financials
    • For the Media
    • News
  • What We Do
    • Back
    • Research
    • Webinars
    • Hastings Bioethics Resources
    • Events
    • Bioethics Careers & Education
    • Newsletter
    • The Bioethics Founders’ Award
    • Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician and Nursing Awards
  • Publications
    • Back
    • Hastings Center Report
    • Ethics & Human Research
    • Special Reports
    • Hastings Bioethics Forum
    • Bioethics Briefings
    • Books by Hastings Scholars
  • DONATE NOW
    • Back
    • Other Gift Options
  •  
  • Donate Now
  •  
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin
  • Twitter / X
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Threads
  • Bluesky
  • Contact
  •  
  • Events
    Upcoming Events
    Previous Events
  • Receive Our Newsletter

  •  
  • For the Media
  • Terms of Use
  • Sitemap