Georgetown University Medical Center

Ethics Consult

Section: Ethics Consult

The Center for Clinical Bioethics has organized an Ethics Consult Service on behalf of the Hospital Ethics Committee. Center faculty and other interested medical center personnel consult regularly on clinical cases that staff, patients, family and/or surrogates find morally troubling. Consultants are available by pager, 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Small Faculty from the CCB meet with the clinical staff, patients, and/or family to clarify the ethical issues and options and to facilitate the decisionmaking process.

A Guideline to Ethical Reflection and Decision-Making in the Catholic Tradition

What is an ethics consult?

Making decisions amid all the complexities of modern medicine is not easy. Ethical questions can arise when a patient has lost the capacity to make decisions, when it is not clear whether the burdens of a treatment are worth the expected benefits, or when values appear to conflict. The Ethics Consult is an advisory service that is designed to assist patients, families and all health care professionals in identifying, analyzing and resolving ethical dilemmas.

No fees are charged for this service and all consults are kept strictly confidential.

How does one request a consult?

The pager number for the consultant on call is: 202/405-3959. The Ethics Consult can also be initiated by calling the Page Operator at Georgetown University at 202/687-7243. The Ethics Consult Service is on-call 24 hours daily. For further information, or if a problem is encountered during standard business hours, please call the Center for Clinical Bioethics directly at 202/687-1122.

A clinical ethicist is on-call each week. Upon receiving a request for a consult, the ethicist will make initial inquiries and along with the clinical staff arrange for a consult meeting that is appropriate to the needs of the parties involved in the case.

Who can request an initial consult?

Anyone may request a consult. Patients, families, doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and any member of the medical team are encouraged to call us for assistance.

What happens in a consult?

An ethicist reviews each request to see what type of consultation is best suited to a particular situation. Sometimes, for instance, the concern may only represent a communication problem. A full consult will generally involve a meeting of several ethicists, the health care team, the patient, and/or the patient's family as appropriate. The consultants do not judge the quality of patient care or make decisions. They help to facilitate a discussion of the situation and clarify the issues from an ethical perspective.

The pager number

The 24-hour pager number is 202/405-3959.