Medical ethics is not a new subspeciality within medicine. Physicians, not ethicists or ethics committees, are responsible for assuring that the ethical perspective is present in medical decisions. Maintaining that physicians decide one aspect of patient care and ethicists another is a caricature of both medicine and ethics. Ethicists are able to help physicians prepare for medical decision making in accord with the accepted ethical norms, but ethicists may never replace physicians. Obtaining informed consent for therapy is an accepted ethical norm for medical care.
Ethicists help physicians understand the essential elements of informed consent.
But physicians assure that informed consent is obtained. Another accepted ethical norm of medical care states that physicians should not induce death but may allow patients to die in certain circumstances. Helping physicians understand the circumstances which allow them to apply this important but subtle norm is the role of the ethicist. While there is a body of knowledge which justifies calling medical ethics a distinct discipline, and thus justifies the role of medical ethicists, there is no reason to posit the medical ethicist as a principal participant in medical decision making. In general, the medical ethicist acts as an educator and, in specific cases, as a consultant, which is simply a more personal manner of education.