The Ethics Committee is a subcommittee of the Quality Improvement Committee, and its purpose is to address ethical issues that frequently arise during patient care. The Ethics Committee does this through case consultations, education, policy formation, retrospective case review, and research.
One of the Ethics Committee functions is to provide medical ethics consults as requested by attendings, staff and personnel as well as patients and their families. The Ethics Committee provides a recommendation to the providers involved in the patient’s care. Frequent causes for an ethics consultation include concerns regarding patient autonomy, justice, and end-of-life issues. The Ethics Committee will review a case and provide a recommendation. A recommendation is advice from the committee, based on a thoughtful examination of the case in the context of the ethical principles of justice, autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence. From a practical standpoint, the Ethics Committee can guide the providers through difficult decisions and facilitate or mediate discussions between different parties. The Ethics Committee is not intended as peer review nor does it have the authority to make decisions for the involved individuals nor to intervene actively. The Ethics Committee desires to be supportive of the professionals and the patients or their families.
The Ethics Committee is also charged to develop curricula and develop educational sessions, to develop policy related to medical ethics and finally to do outcomes research to evaluate the efficacy of medical ethics clinical and educational activities.
The Chair of the Medical Ethics Committee is William B. Strong, MD, Emeritus LH Charbonnier Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology. Together with physicians, other professionals and patient advocates, the Committee’s goal is to respond to Ethics Consultations in a very timely manner and render their recommendation concerning the issue raised.
In order to obtain a Medical Ethics consultation, you need only to call the Office of Risk Management (706 721 7475). Since many consultations are of a legal nature, that office will determine whether or not to forward it on to the Ethics Committee.