Implementation of Clinical Ethics Consultation

Abstract

Clinical ethics consultation is desired for medical staff, but it is limited nationwide. Ethical dilemmas arise in clinical situations; however, there is no consensus on the implementation of clinical ethics and clinical ethics consultation. This paper intends to clearly show the implementation of clinical ethics consultation. First, previous literature on clinical ethics was reviewed, and the concrete processes of clinical ethics were discussed, in an easy-to-understand manner, regardless of the historical context of clinical ethics that were derived from bioethics. Then, the processes of clinical ethics were confirmed in the parties concerned, between attending medical staffs and patients and families. After the processes of clinical ethics consultation were confirmed, a method of responding to clients was proposed to be differentiated between advices of fact confirmation and those accompanied by value judgement. Several examples were provided based on our clinical experiences. The discussion and the proposals in this paper are expected to promote the establishment of clinical ethics support and encourage clinical ethics consultants to maintain their standard of daily activities, similar to medical safety and infection control protocols in a hospital.