# Resources for clinical ethics consultation

Clinical ethics support services initially developed in the United States of America, following court cases such as the Karen Ann Quinlan case, which stressed the need for mechanisms to resolve ethical disputes within health care. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations requirement for hospitals, nursing homes, and home care agencies to have a standing mechanism to address ethical issues has also fostered this development (this requirement no longer appears in the Joint Commission regulations, however).
Despite initial doubts as the possibility of importing what was initially felt to be a specificity of the US system, ethics support services have developed in many other countries, including Canada but also various countries in Europe and Asia.
In order to share experience and resources among these clinical research ethics consultation and support services, networks and platforms have increasingly developed. This page is intended to summarise existing online resources aimed at assisting new and developing clinical ethics support services. Its goal is to make these resources more easily accessible. Listing in this page does not constitute endorsement of the various contents: users will still need to judge the value of these resources for themselves.
It is reasonable to suppose that these resources will increasingly be international. Because of the role of the English language in international communication, multi-lingual resources whose languages include English are given in their English title. Those not available in English are given in their original language.

## Clinical ethics consultation networks

Listed by country

### Canada

Provincial Health Ethics Network (Alberta)

### United Kingdom

UK clinical ethics network

### United States

Center for Practical Bioethics
Kansas Health Ethics Committee Network
Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network
Midwest Ethics Committee Network
Johns Hopkins Research Ethics Consulting Service

## National and international guidelines on clinical ethics

Listed by country

### World Medical Association

International code of medical ethics

### Australia

Australian Medical Association code of ethics

### Canada

Canadian Medical Association code of ethics

### India

Medical Council of India code of ethics

### New Zealand

New Zealand Medical Association code of ethics

### Switzerland

Medical ethics recommendations of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences

### United Kingdom

British Medical Association's Medical Ethics portal
British General Medical Council’s Guidance on Good Medical Practice

### United States

Center for Practical Bioethics
American Medical Association code of ethics

## Clinical ethics committee guidelines

Many clinical ethics support services develop guidelines and advise policy within the health care setting. While the conclusions of consultations regarding individual patients are, of course, confidential, general ethical guidelines and policy advice regarding ethical difficulties which come up repeatedly in clinical care are not. Some ethics support services make these guidelines available online. Adding yours will make these resources more useful!
Listed by country

### Switzerland

Recommandations du Conseil d'éthique clinique de Genève

### United States

Center for Practical Bioethics

## Methodological resources

Some networks and consultation services have developed tools and guidelines for the practice of clinical ethics consultation, and made them available online. The following sites provide tools, documents, and advice for new or developing clinical ethics support services:

### Switzerland

Recommandations on "Ethics Support in medicine" from the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences

### United Kingdom

UK Clinical Ethics Network practical guide for clinical ethics support

### United States

University of Washington guide on clinical ethics committees and consultation
Veterans' Administration (US) IntegratedEthics Tools and Materials

## Online books

Principles of Biomedical Ethics (Tom L. Beauchamp, James F. Childress)
Ethics Consultation: from theory to practice (Mark P. Aulisio, Robert M. Arnold, Stuart J. Youngner)
Ethics Consultation (John La Puma, David L. Schiedermayer)
Cambridge textbook of bioethics (Peter A. Singer, Adrian M. Viens)

## Selected articles

ASBH Task Force on Health Care Ethics Consultation: Nature, Goals, and Competencies
Clinical bioethics integration, sustainability, and accountability: the Hub and Spokes Strategy by the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics
Clinical ethics, information, and communication: review of 31 cases from a clinical ethics committee (Norway)
Moral Deliberation in the Netherlands
Clinical ethics consultation in Switzerland
Report on the conference “clinical ethics consultation: theories and methods—implementation—evaluation,” February 11–15, 2008, Bochum, Germany

## Online tutorials

Listed by language

### English

Skill Building in Ethics Case Consultation at the Neiswanger Institute

### French

Études de cas du Conseil d'éthique clinique de Genève

## International and national conferences

International Association of Bioethics
International Conference on Clinical Ethics and Consultation

### Canada

Canadian Bioethics Society

### Switzerland

Société Suisse d'Éthique Biomédicale / Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Biomedizinische Ethik

### United States

American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities