Bashir Jiwani

Bashir is an Ethicist by profession and leads the departments of Ethics Services and Diversity Services at Fraser Health, one of Canada’s largest and fastest growing health authorities.

Bashir is a Canadian Shia Ismaili Muslim. He has academic training in philosophy, bioethics, political science, and public health. He has been working as an ethicist in healthcare in Canada for over 30 years.

Professionally, Bashir serves as the Lead Ethicist and Executive Director for Ethics Services at Fraser Health, one of Canada’s largest, most diverse and fastest growing health authorities. The goal of this team is to help the people serving through and served by the health authority to live with integrity in a context of diversity and inequality.

The Department is responsible for Clinical Ethics Consultation Services, System-Level Ethics Consultation Services, and building ethical literacy in the organization. This means building the knowledge, skills and attributes of the people the department serves to engage morally challenging situations in contexts of diversity and inequality.

Bashir is actively involved with service on a wide range of provincial, national and international committees and boards. He is the current President of the Canadian Bioethics Society- Société canadienne de bioéthique. He has also served in various capacities with the Ismaili Tariqah and Religious Education Board for Canada for the last two decades. As his background and engagements indicate, Bashir is keenly interested in serving the various inter-related communities he belongs to (and that we are all members of) to live better, more peaceful and just lives. He believes this can happen through careful attention to the choices we make, from how we choose to be with ourselves and each other.

See Bashir’s CV here

Professional

Bashir is Ethicist and Director, Fraser Health Ethics Services and Diversity Services.

The work of Ethics Services includes clinical ethics consultation, ethics-based organizational policy analysis, ethics infrastructure development and support, and ongoing ethics education and programming.

Diversity Services includes a comprehensive education strategy to build cultural competency and a consultation service that seeks to catalyze relationships between individuals and teams to create greater mutual understanding and achievement of shared goals.

Previous Professional

Bashir has worked as an Ethicist with Providence Health Care, a Catholic health organization within the Vancouver Coastal Health Region in BC. Bashir also spent a number of years with the Provincial Health Ethics Network in Alberta.

Committee

Bashir is currently serving in his seventh year as a member of the Executive for the Canadian Bioethics Society. He is a member of the Canadian Blood Services’ Organ Donation and Transplantation Expert Advisory Committee, the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia’s Ethics Advisory Committee and the Provincial Forum for Clinical Ethics Support and Coordination in BC. Bashir has also worked with a number of committees and special task forces including the Canadian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Ethics Consultation Committee, the Canadian Joint Oncology Drug Review Ethics Group and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia’s Ethical Standards and Conduct Review Committee.

Academic

Bashir’s academic background is in philosophy and public health. He has a Doctorate from the University of Alberta’s Public Health Sciences department and a Master’s degree in Applied Ethics, specializing in Bioethics, from UBC. Bashir has also undertaken extensive alternative dispute resolution training with the Alberta Association of Mediation and Arbitration.

Community

In terms of work with the Shia Ismaili Muslim community, Bashir has served as a member of the Ismaili Tariqah and Religious Education Board for Canada. He continues to serve the Board with building ethics decision-making capacity and developing a quality assurance agenda. He also supports a wide variety ethics initiatives in the community at home in Canada and internationally.