This topic page will discuss the role and activities of these groups. Ethics committees or select members often help resolve ethical conflicts and answer ethical questions through the provision of consultations. Ethics committee members usually represent major clinical services and other stakeholders in health care delivery. Oftentimes, these committees also have a quality improvement manager, an individual responsible for the education program at the facility, a lawyer, and at least one individual with advanced training in ethics. This latter representative can come from a number of disciplines, including philosophy, law, medicine, theology, and anthropology.
Some ethics committees allow guests.
These can include health sciences students, philosophy graduate students, physician trainees, facilitators, and patient representatives. Guests need to maintain the confidentiality of the information discussed at the meetings, often signing oaths to that effect. An ethics consultant is an expert in clinical ethics who either provides ethics consultations or serves as an educator to the committee. Sometimes in lieu of an ethics consultant, the ethics committee will develop subcommittees to handle these functions. The decision to have an ethics consultant versus subcommittees rests with the available resources and the expertise of the committee members.