The University of Missouri Health Care Clinical Ethics Consultation Service helps patients, families, surrogate decision-makers, and health care professionals address complex ethical questions that arise during medical care. Coordinated by the MU Center for Health Ethics, the service provides timely ethics consultation to support thoughtful, patient-centered decision-making throughout University of Missouri Health Care.
Our interdisciplinary team includes faculty and staff with specialized education and experience in clinical ethics consultation and bioethics. Ethics consultants are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to respond to requests for consultation.
What Is a Clinical Ethics Consultation?
A clinical ethics consultation is a structured process that helps patients, families, and health care teams identify, understand, and address the ethical dimensions of patient care. Ethics consultation provides a forum for thoughtful discussion when health care decisions involve uncertainty, competing values, communication challenges, or disagreement.
Ethics consultants do not make medical decisions or replace the judgment of patients, surrogate decision-makers, or treating clinicians. Instead, they facilitate communication, clarify ethical considerations, identify ethically appropriate options, and support collaborative decision-making.
When Should an Ethics Consultation Be Requested?
An ethics consultation may be helpful whenever patients, families, surrogate decision-makers, or members of the health care team have questions or concerns about ethically complex situations.
Examples include:
- Uncertainty about the ethically appropriate course of action
- Questions regarding patient decision-making capacity
- Concerns about informed consent
- Disagreement among patients, families, surrogate decision-makers, or members of the health care team
- Questions involving goals of care
- Decisions regarding life-sustaining treatment
- Conflicts involving patient values, professional responsibilities, or organizational policies
- Other situations involving ethical uncertainty in patient care
An ethics consultation may be requested at any point during a patient's care.
What Happens During an Ethics Consultation?
After a consultation request is received, an ethics consultant contacts the individual requesting assistance to better understand the situation and determine the next steps.
Depending on the circumstances, the consultant may:
- Review relevant medical information
- Meet with the patient, family, surrogate decision-makers, and members of the health care team
- Facilitate discussion among those involved
- Clarify ethical questions and competing considerations
- Identify ethically appropriate options
- Document recommendations in the medical record when appropriate
The consultation process is collaborative and respectful of the perspectives, values, and responsibilities of everyone involved in the patient's care.
Supporting Informed and Patient-Centered Decision-Making
University of Missouri Health Care is committed to supporting informed, patient-centered decision-making. Clinical ethics consultation helps ensure that ethical questions receive careful consideration while respecting patient values, professional responsibilities, and applicable legal and institutional standards.
Final treatment decisions remain the responsibility of the patient or authorized surrogate decision-maker, together with the treating physician and health care team.
Requesting an Ethics Consultation
Patients, family members, surrogate decision-makers, and members of the health care team may request a clinical ethics consultation.
If you would like to speak with an ethics consultant during a hospitalization, please ask your physician, nurse, social worker, or chaplain to contact the hospital operator at 573-882-4141 and request the on-call ethics consultant.
Consultation Services
Established in 2004, the University of Missouri Health Care Clinical Ethics Consultation Service provides clinical ethics consultation throughout the University of Missouri Health Care system, including University Hospital, Children's Hospital, Ellis Fischel Cancer Center, Missouri Orthopaedic Institute, Missouri Psychiatric Center, the Birthing Center–Columbia, and Capital Region Medical Center.
The service also provides consultation and educational support to hospitals, health care organizations, and health care professionals throughout Missouri through telephone, email, and tele-ethics consultation.
For additional information or to request a consultation, contact the MU Center for Health Ethics at 573-882-2738 or Email.
