About

Autumn Fiester, PhD, is Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She is the Faculty Program Director for the Master of Bioethics (MBE) and Master of Science in Medical Ethics (MSME) degrees. Dr. Fiester is also the Director of the Penn Program in Clinical Conflict Management, which promotes conflict resolution training for clinical providers and clinical ethics consultants. She conducts workshops in conflict management throughout the US and abroad and has served as an Academic Conflict Management Consultant in the School of Arts and Sciences, working with academic units on strategic vision, improved communication, mediation, and organizational development. Her international bioethics work includes projects in Tanzania, the EU, the UAE, Singapore, and Japan. Dr. Fiester has authored over 125 publications in clinical ethics, clinical conflict management, LGBT bioethics, and medical ethics education. She has been an invited guest editor for multiple special theme issues in leading bioethics journals and is the recipient of the University of Pennsylvania's Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Engineering ethics
• Law
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Environmental ethics
• Social psychology
• Public relations
• Epistemology
• Medical education
• Engineering
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• Principlism’s Abuse of Deontology

  The American Journal of Bioethics · 2026-03-04

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• Mediating Clinical Conflict: An Expanded Role for Patient Relations Offices

  The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety · 2025-06-20

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• Conscientious Objection, Life-Continuation Values, and the Protection of Normative Minorities

  The American Journal of Bioethics · 2025-02-24 · 2 citations

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• Defending Dubler’s Legacy: Relocating the Role of Conflict Management from the Ethics Consultation Service to Patient and Guest Relations

  The Journal of Clinical Ethics · 2025-11-18 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Nancy Dubler pioneered “bioethics mediation” as a method of clinical ethics consultation (CEC), arguing that “bioethics consultation is largely, although not entirely, a matter of conflict resolution.” By the time she published the second edition of Bioethics Mediation in 2011, she had garnered significant support for the idea that mediation had an important role to play in CEC. But in the intervening decade and a half, a new generation of CEC thought leaders have emerged, and there is clear evidence that, for them, conflict management has very little to do with the practice of CEC. Today, there are not only just a small proportion of ethics consultants (ECs) trained in mediation skills but also only a small proportion of ECs who view such skills as essential to the practice of CEC. Yet conflict among patients, families, and healthcare providers remains a significant problem in U.S. healthcare institutions. The new trends in CEC make it unlikely that ethics will be the locus for the conflict management services hospitals need; therefore, I will argue that it is time to transfer the mediator role from ethics to the newly emerging Patient and Guest Relations departments. I believe that this offers the best prospects for defending Dubler’s legacy.

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• Introduction, Surrogate Wars: the ‘Best Interest Values’ Hierarchy & End-of-Life Conflicts with Surrogate Decision-Makers

  HEC Forum · 2025-10-15 · 1 citations

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• Introduction: Trauma and Surrogate Decision Makers: An Argument for Moral Priority in Futility Disputes

  The Journal of Clinical Ethics · 2025-02-10

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• TIEC, Trauma Capacity, and the Moral Priority of Surrogate Decision Makers in Futility Disputes

  The Journal of Clinical Ethics · 2025-02-10 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  AbstractIn the past 15 years, trauma-informed care (TIC) has evolved as a new paradigm in healthcare that recognizes the impact of past traumas on patients' and families' healthcare experience while seeking to avoid inducing new trauma during clinical care. A recent paper by Lanphier and Anani extends TIC principles to healthcare ethics consultation (HEC) in what they label "trauma-informed ethics consultation" (TIEC), which calls for the "addition of trauma informed awareness, training, and skill in clinical ethics consultation." While Lanphier and Anani claim that TIEC is "novel, but not radical" because it builds on the approach to HEC endorsed by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, I believe that TIEC has radical implications, particularly regarding ethical obligations to surrogate decision makers (SDMs). Given what I call the SDM's "trauma capacity," I argue that TIEC accords moral priority to SDMs over patients in certain types of end-of-life cases, particularly futility disputes, which is a radical departure from the conventional HEC approach to SDMs.

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• The Transformative Power of Reasons Relitigates Concerns about Non-Facilitated Healthcare Ethics Consultation

  The American Journal of Bioethics · 2025-10-18 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• Values Frameworks as Ideal Types: Navigating Ethics Conflicts with Normative Minorities

  HEC Forum · 2025-10-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In the piece, "Surrogate Wars: The 'Best Interest Values' Hierarchy & End-of-Life Conflicts with Surrogate Decision-Makers," I argue that incommensurable value systems between healthcare providers (HCPs) and surrogate decision-makers (SDMs) lie at the root of many intractable end-of-life treatment disputes. I argue that the most prevalent value system of HCPs might be understood as a "Best Interest Values" (BIV) hierarchy and that this value system is irreconcilable with the set of "Life-Continuation Values" (LCV) held by a sizable minority of families in the United States. I believe that HCPs facing seemingly intractable conflict with SDMs would be aided by understanding their BIV values framework as just one of many cogent values systems in the context of US ethical pluralism. Five preeminent bioethicists provide insightful commentaries on my essay, offering pointed critiques, raising important challenges, and gesturing towards extensions and refinements of my argument. In this essay, I respond to those thoughtful and well-argued commentaries.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Response to Lanphier and Anani, “Defining and Refining Trauma-Informed Ethics Consultation”

  The Journal of Clinical Ethics · 2025-02-10

  article1st authorCorresponding

  AbstractIn their article "Defining and Refining Trauma-Informed Ethics Consultation," Lanphier and Anani respond to my argument about surrogate trauma and prioritization. I show that there is a great deal of overlap between my view and the views of Lanphier and Anani, the architects of TIEC, with potentially some differences. Lanphier and Anani's commentary is structured by three discussion points: (1) the degree to which their articulation of TIEC challenges the HEC status quo, (2) their distinction between HEC "process" and "method," and (3) the legitimacy of "ethically acceptable options."

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Frequent coauthors

• Lance Wahlert

  8 shared

• Edward J. Bergman

  University of Pennsylvania

  5 shared

• Jonathan Kole

  Brown University

  4 shared

• Shana D. Stites

  University of Pennsylvania

  3 shared

• Katharine Press Callahan

  Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

  2 shared

• Beatrice E. Lechner

  Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island

  2 shared

• Sotonye Imadojemu

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  2 shared

• Arthur L. Caplan

  New York University

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• University of Pennsylvania's Lindback Award for Distinguishe…