Medical Student University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor, Michigan
Abstract: Ethics consults are a primary way that healthcare professionals, patients, and families seek formal guidance on perceived ethical problems. Typically, consults are initiated by healthcare professionals because of their familiarity with the service but are rooted in providers’ perspectives of what constitutes an ethical problem, often in the context of having received some bioethics education during training. Patients and families may not have this knowledge. Better understanding about the reasons why patients and/or families initiate ethics consultation can help ethicists and healthcare professionals respond to patient/family distress and inform patient/family education initiatives. Previous studies used surveys to assess patient and family perspectives of ethical concerns during hospitalization or interviewed them about their experiences following ethics consultation. Analysis of patient- and family-initiated ethics consults is lacking. To address this gap, we retrospectively reviewed ethics consults from 2015 to 2024 to identify those that were patient or family initiated. We examined the primary ethical issue and contextual features of each consult. In this presentation, we report the observed patterns in what prompted patients and/or families to initiate an ethics consult. We then discuss ways to raise awareness for patients and families of the role of the ethics consultant. Finally, we make recommendations for strategies and resources to address patient- and family-initiated ethics consults that do not fall within the realm of bioethics and best ameliorate patient and/or family distress.
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