Imagine the following scenarios:

A surgeon prepares to amputate a patient’s foot to save his life, but the patient refuses the procedure. His decline in thinking and memory raises doubts about his ability to consent, and he has no family or friends to help with the decision.

A 17-year-old declines a liver transplant, while her mother insists on going forward with the lifesaving surgery.

Siblings stand divided at the bedside of their 85-year-old mother with dementia, one rejecting a feeding tube, the other calling it a basic human necessity.

I am a hospital ethics consultant, and these are the kinds of situations my colleagues and I regularly encounter. Yet many people are unaware that hospital ethics consultants even exist – or that they can ask for one.

Who are hospital ethics consultants?

Healthcare ethics consultants are trained to help patients, families and clinicians navigate difficult medical decisions.

They could be called in situations where healthcare staff struggles with providing procedures such as cardiac resuscitation that are unlikely to benefit the patient and might even cause more pain and suffering. They could also be called when it is unclear who has authority to consent for a patient’s care, or when end-of-life decisions are complicated and resources are limited – such as ICU beds and ventilators during COVID-19.

Ethics consultants come from a range of disciplines: physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, lawyers and philosophers who have specialized training and experience in clinical ethics. Since 2018, ethics consultants are increasingly pursuing formal........

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