Providence Center for Health Care Ethics provides an important Ethics Consultation Service to assist in clinical situations involving ethical concerns. The Ethics Consultation Teams are comprised of specially trained physicians, nurses, chaplains, administrators and care managers as well as ethicists.
Ethics consults seek to:
Bring clarity as a response to ethical questions and, as appropriate, legal questions
Assist in understanding ethical terms and concepts
Identify and help balance various, sometimes conflicting, interests in a particular care
Assist in developing and evaluating a care plan
An ethics consult may be helpful for a wide range of issues:
Addressing discrepancies between clinical judgement and the wishes of patients or their surrogates
Interpreting unclear patient wishes or unclear advance directives
Discerning patient wishes or interests when there is no advance directive
Clarifying who the decision makers are
Respecting patient confidentiality
Respecting autonomy of incompetent patients
Resolving tensions related to religious beliefs or cultural backgrounds
Besides completing the core curriculum program in ethics education, Ethics Consultation Team members have each completed an additional 30 hours of mentored training. Each team's preparation satisfies the Core Competencies for Health Care Ethics Consultation recommended by the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities.
The Ethics Consultation Teams serve at Providence Portland and Providence St. Vincent Medical Centers. They may be reached by contacting the Ethics Center (503-216-1913) or, after hours and on weekends, at the hospitals' Pastoral Care departments (Providence Portland, 503-215-6833; Providence St. Vincent, 503-216-2261; Providence Milwaukie Hospital, 503-513-8172)
