Clinical Medical Ethics

Abstract

Clinical medical ethics is a new medical field, developed and named in the 1970s, that helps patients, families, physicians, and other health professionals reach good clinical decisions by taking into account both the specific clinical situation and the patient’s values and preferences. The field of clinical medical ethics is much broader and encompassing than its component of ethics consultations; it applies across the entire spectrum of routine, daily medical practice. For clinicians today, applying clinical medical ethics standards in patient care is not an elective matter but rather has become the standard of care in the United States and is mandated legally and professionally. For example, in caring for their patients, physicians must apply clinical ethics standards such as speaking truthfully to their patients, negotiating informed consent for clinical decisions, protecting patient confidentiality, assessing the patient’s decisional capacity, and, when appropriate, working with surrogates or proxies to reach clinical decisions. In contrast to the 1970s, clinical medical ethics discussions have now become a part of everyday clinical discourse and are used to reach clinical decisions in outpatient and inpatient settings across the country. The goal of clinical medical ethics is to improve patient care and patient outcomes. The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago is one of the leading clinical medical ethics programs in the world and has helped to create, name, and develop this new field.