This book addresses new and evolving thorny issues in clinical ethics consultation. It is a book for our time. The contributors provide essential critical reflection on the standards and methods of training clinical ethics consultants as the field seeks to professionalize. This collection incorporates both North American and European experts, offering different perspectives on issues such as marginalized populations, the opioid epidemic, complex discharge, micro-managing families, and continually challenging issues at the end-of-life, such as determinations of brain death, physician-assisted death, and futility. The authors engage the complexities of choosing for others when making decisions for incapacitated adults and pediatric patients. This volume engages with the growing literature in these debates and offers new perspectives from both academics and practitioners. The readings are of particular interest to bioethicists, clinicians, ethics committees, and students in bioethics and beyond. These new essays advance discussions in the professionalization and certification of ethics consultants and offer crucial insights on new and evolving thorny issues in the practice of clinical ethics consultation.

This is a book about clinical ethics consultation by two practitioners who together have done more than 700 consultations. There is not another authoritative book like it. Practical rather than theoretical in scope, the book addresses strategies for conducting consultations, relating to patients at the bedside, investigating the ethical issues, making recommendations, following up on cases, and keeping records. Chapters include issues such as the need for training, the skills needed, the problem of certification, how to set up a practice, financial compensation and billing, and the relation of the consultant to committees, particularly ethics committees. The authors include reflections about learning clinical ethics and education of committees, hospital staff, and the general public about issues that arise. The purpose is to help ethics consultants improve their conscious assessment of their work, both how they go about it and its legitimacy for patients, health care providers, and hospitals. The orientation is primarily on clinical care of patients, because the goal of such consultations is always aimed to improve patient care. Other ethics consultants might work to develop institutional policies. Although that is touched on in the book, it is not the primary goal of the authors. The book is aimed at the practitioner in bioethics in a clinical setting.