Sebastian Farr
I work as an assistant at the Institute of Social Ethics at the Center for Ethcis of the University of Zürich where I teach theological ethics and research into healthcare-chaplaincy and medical ethics.
How I got here
I have studied theology at the Universities of Göttingen and Münster (Germany) as well as at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta (USA).
During my studies I was especially interested in biomedical ethics as well as on pastoral care and counselling.
In my thesis I evaluated and systemized current research on healthcare-chaplains' participation in ethical decision making.
Alongside my studies I finished my training as an EMT and worked part time in rescue services gaining pracitical experience providing immediate medical care for patients in emergency situations.
What I'm working on
My research-project focusses on the ways hospital chaplains are involved with ethics-counselling and ethical decision-making. I aim at exploring how pastoral care and ethical decision-making are intertwined and influence each other – especially since they come together in one professional person.
The project takes an empirical approach. In the first stage I use an online-survey to learn more about with what fields of ethical conflicts chaplains get in touch with. Building on these findings I am going to design interviews to investigate more on the ways chaplains deal with different professional roles and settings when providing pastoral care and ethics-counselling.
The doctorate-project is supervised by Traugott Roser (Professor of Practical Theology, University of Münster) and Michael Coors (Professor of Theological Ethics, University of Zürich).