The CAE provides Clinical Ethics support to patients, families and health care teams who face challenging situations or difficult choices related to a particular patient’s care, often as a result of conflicting values.
Professional ethicists assist patients, families and health care teams to identify, analyze and resolve a wide range of ethical challenges that can arise in health care. They help ensure that all stakeholders’ values and interests are taken into consideration and share their knowledge of ethics, legal and professional obligations, as well as institutional policies, in order to promote a consistent approach to ethical decision making within our institution.
Ethicists will not advocate for any particular stakeholder, nor do they have the authority to make health care decisions. Instead, they encourage a fair decision-making process within the limits of widely accepted ethical and legal norms and standards.
The clinical ethics division of the Center for Applied Ethics also provides ongoing clinical ethics education to staff, residents and physicians and attempts to raise awareness and integrate ethics into all aspects of daily practice at the MUHC.
Clinical ethics services can be requested through locating.