Care, conscience and hospitality - with Xavier Symons

How can a personalist perspective contribute to a better understanding of the experience of people living with dementia? What does it mean to offer hospitality to those in need of care? And why is it important to respect the conscience, and the right to conscientious objection, of healthcare practitioners? These are some of the questions we explore in this episode with Xavier Symons, a postdoctoral fellow at the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, and the author of Why Conscience Matters: A Defence of Conscientious Objection in Healthcare (Routledge).

We cover the following topics in this episode:

Xavier's current work at Harvard (02:12)

Xavier's earlier academic work (05:38)

Personal and family influences on Xavier's academic journey (11:25)

A personalist perspective on dementia care (15:00)

'Reciprocating care' (22:40)

Recovering the notion of hospitality in care work (26:35)

Hospitality and disponibilité (30:10)

Hospitality and spiritual care (35:00)

Why conscience matters in healthcare (37:30)

The virtuous practitioner (40:55)

Conscientious objection and end of life care (42:00)