Their work covers broad ethical ground, often influencing our laws and helping to frame the practice of modern-day medicine. Hospital ethics committees work on a more applied level. These boards serve largely to establish hospital policy, develop educational programs in medical ethics and to consult on individual patient cases. They develop protocols for dealing with ethically ambiguous clinical situations and produce specific guidelines, recommendations and all relevant consent and release forms. Additionally, many committees today retain an ethicist for assistance in establishing hospital policy and consulting on individual cases.
Physicians make ethical decisions on the most applied level.
Physicians are guided by a number of forces in making ethical decisions, from the wishes of their patients, their medical judgment, the law and their own consciences. Making ethical decisions can prove difficult and even overwhelming at times. Increasingly, there is an emphasis on the rights of patients to oversee their medical care. Indeed, it is a primary concept in medical ethics that when the physician's ethical outlook conflicts with the wishes of the patient, it is the patient rather than the physician who makes the final decision. Honoring advance directives such as living wills and durable powers of attorney.