Patients, families, and health care practitioners sometimes face ethically difficult, confusing, or conflicting choices. When this happens, they may not be sure how to make the “best” or “right” choice. The Clinical Ethics Consultation Service (CECS) assists with navigating these challenging situations.

What is an Ethics Consultation?

An ethics consultation facilitates discussion, analysis, and understanding of ethical issues involved in patient care.  Consultants provide ethically appropriate recommendations when conflicting individual, professional, organizational, and social values lead to ethical uncertainty in patient care.

A free service provided for patients, families, and health care professionals in identifying, analyzing, and resolving ethical dilemmas.

Examples of when an ethics consult may be needed:

• Someone is unsure how to make decisions for a patient when the patient can no longer communicate their wishes.
• There is disagreement about defining the patient's best interest, values, or their preferences.
• There is uncertainty about whether the benefits of a proposed treatment are proportional to the burdens.

Who may request an Ethics Consultation?

A Clinical Ethics Consult may be requested by anyone: patient, families/loved ones, or any health-care practitioner or administrator.

All conversations are confidential and provided at no cost to the patient or department.

To request an ethics consultation: 

Call: (409) 747-1230
Page: (409) 643-9650
Email: ethics@utmb.edu
301 University Blvd.
Galveston, Texas 77555-1150

The goal of attending patient rounds and interdisciplinary meetings is to:

• Offer a more proactive service by anticipating potential dilemmas or deliberating nascent issues.
• Provide opportunities to engage in educational ethical issue discourse.
• Instill the ethicist with an understanding of the environment, context, and culture by which each team navigates.
• Provide another agile mechanism of formal ethics consultation requests.

The Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) is an officially constituted committee of The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB), reporting to the Office of the President, under the leadership of the Director of the Ethics Program. The IEC works in conjunction within the Ethics Program to provide comprehensive, integrated ethics support for the institution.

Mission

The IEC provides a multidisciplinary forum for the analysis and discussion of ethical standards affecting patient care, professional education and community interests in service to the organizational mission to improve health. This mission is fulfilled through the Committee’s advisory, educational, policy development, and service functions.

Vision

The IEC is committed to the promotion of high ethical standards in all of its operations and recognizes its responsibility in protecting and promoting the rights and responsibilities of its members. The IEC supports UTMB’s Values of compassion, integrity, respect, diversity, lifelong learning.