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Invoking the Law in Ethics Consultation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Bethany Spielman
Bethany Spielman
Affiliation:
Center for Biomedical Ethics, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville
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Extract

A request that an ethics committee or consultant analyze the ethical issues in a case, delineate ethical options, or make a recommendation need not automatically but often does elicit legal information. In a recent book in which ethics consultants described cases on which they had worked, almost all cited a legal case or statute that had shaped the consultation process. During a period of just a few months, case consultation done under the auspices of one university hospital ethics committee involved interpretation of statutes on living wills, durable powers of attorney, competency, confidentiality, guardianship, AIDS testing, and disability (personal observation). At another hospital, 30% of ethics consultations were thought to involve legal issues. Attorneys at a third hospital estimated that virtually every case involves legal issues. The notion that ethics consultation is an “amalgam” of medicine, ethics, interpersonal skills, and law is gaining currency. Ethics consultation has become a channel through which law enters the clinical setting.

Type
Special Section: Ethics Consultants and Ethics Consultations
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , Fall 1993 , pp. 457 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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