Online Program

295019
Witness to dilemma and deformation: Observations on health professional practice inside a women's prison


Tuesday, November 5, 2013 : 10:50 a.m. - 11:10 a.m.

Kathy Boudin, EdD, Center for Comprehensive Care, St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital, New York, NY
Dual loyalties often lead to compromised professional standards and practice by health care professionals working in prisons. Medical providers in New York State (NYS) prisons are employed by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DCCS) to provide health care to people who are incarcerated. The DCCS administers the four traditional sentencing goals of deterrence, incapacitation, retribution and rehabilitation, and recently added to New York State law, that of reentry and reintegration. The punishment and security objectives of the institution can create conditions in which the health professional is not able to or does not want to perform health care up to professional standards. Health providers are sometimes placed in stressful situations in which it is extremely difficult, or seeming impossible to perform health duties. At Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the maximum security prison for women in New York State, examples of these pressures on health professionals demonstrate the objective conditions that create divided loyalties for the health provider between their patients and prison security assessments.

Learning Areas:

Administration, management, leadership
Ethics, professional and legal requirements
Program planning
Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Describe professional conflicts arising from employment obligations and environment of incarcerated patients

Keyword(s): Jails and Prisons, Women's Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have worked in the area of health care and prisons since 1984 and I have published in professional journals such as the Journal of Nursing and Columbia University Journal of Women on issues of health care in prison. I was incarcerated for 22 years in a women’s prison and edited and co-authored a book called “ Breaking the Walls of Silence: Women and AIDS in a New York State Maximum Security Prison for Women.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.