How can a clinical ethics service contribute to ethical care at macro, meso and micro-levels of health care organisations?

Clinical ethics committees aim to resolve conflict, facilitate communication and ease moral distress in health care. Broad benefits of clinical ethics consultation services include improved quality of care for patients; protection of their rights; reduction of unnecessary, unwanted or wasteful treatments, and at the institutional level, promotion of responsible institutional policies and practices and risk management.

In this talk, I will refer to the work of one clinical ethics consultation service in a large paediatric hospital in Australia; the Children’s Bioethics Centre at theRoyal Children’s Hospital (RCH).

I will use case examples to address two main questions:

1. What ethical deliberation tools and principles are used to assist clinicians address ethical issues and dilemmas in their everyday practice?

2. What is the role and value of a clinical ethics consultation service?

 

Clare Delany is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Education, Melbourne Medical School and clinical ethicist at the Royal Children’s Hospital Children’s Bioethics Centre in Melbourne. Clare’s clinical ethics role involves conducting clinical ethics consultations, education and research in paediatric bioethics. Clare is Chair of the University of Melbourne Humanities and Applied Ethics Human Research Ethics Sub Committee and is a sessional member of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Clare is known nationally and internationally for her scholarly contributions related to professional ethics, clinical reasoning, critical reflection, resilience for clinical learning and educational theory and application in clinical education. Current research areas include exploring interdisciplinary communication in paediatric settings; communication resources to support parents facing end of life decisions for their child; making expert clinical reasoning visible for novice practitioners and assessment for learning in Indigenous health. Her most recent book as co-editor is titled: ‘When Doctors and Parents Disagree: Ethics, Paediatrics and the Zone of Parental Discretion.’