The role of hospital ethics committees in emergency medicine practice.

Publication/Presentation Date

8-1-2020

Abstract

Emergency physicians face real-time ethical dilemmas that may occur at any hour of the day or night. Hospital ethics committees and ethics consultation services are not always able to provide immediate responses to emergency physicians' consultation requests. When faced with an emergent dilemma, emergency physicians sometimes rely on risk management or hospital counsel to answer legal questions, but may be better served by real-time ethics consultation. When other resources are not immediately available, emergency physicians should feel confident in making timely decisions, guided by basic principles of medical ethics. We make the following recommendations: (1) availability of a member of the hospital ethics committee to provide in-person or telephonic consultation concurrent with patient care; (2) appointment to the hospital ethics committee of an emergency physician who is familiar with bioethical principles and is available for consultation when other ethics consultants are not; and (3) development of educational tools by professional societies or similar organizations to assist emergency physicians in making reasoned and defensible clinical ethics decisions.

Volume

1

Issue

4

First Page

403

Last Page

407

ISSN

2688-1152

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences

PubMedID

33000063

Department(s)

Department of Emergency Medicine

Document Type

Article

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