The ethics consult

When there are difficult decisions to be made, sometimes an ethics consult can help. This is especially true in end-of-life situations:

Many patients don’t know that ethics consults even exist, much less that they are free (the hospital picks up the tab). But ethics consultation services are available in 81 percent of all US hospitals – and all US hospitals with more than 400 beds, according to a survey published this year by Dr. Ellen Fox of the Department of Veterans Affairs and her colleagues. Ethics experts typically are doctors, nurses, chaplains or other medical professionals with extra training in ethics.