A group of five people – Megan Best (NSW), Denise Cooper-Clarke (Victoria), Kuruvilla George (Victoria), Paul Mercer (Queensland) and myself – gathered at St Hilary's Kew, in inner Melbourne. All are long term CMDFA Members. A big thank you to Denise for organising such a pleasant and facilitating environment.

Megan reviewed the various approaches to ethical issues – cultural relativism (e.g. post-modernism), consequentialism (many health care decisions are made in this way), virtue ethics (from Aristotle and Plato),
natural law (Roman Catholic ethics) and divine command theory (e.g. basing moral decisions on revelation, and also surprisingly human rights).

Denise reviewed the different models of the doctor-patient relationship with each having different conceptions of patient autonomy.

These models saw the doctor as informative, interpretive, deliberative, paternalistic, or instrumental and also a model based on a covenant agreement between doctor and patient. We had much to think about.

We reviewed documents from sister organisations (CMF UK and CMDA USA), and have commenced work on a guideline on end of life issues. I am grateful to all that have contributed to such a promising start.