Back
s10730-025-09549-6
Journal article

Should clinical ethicists be informed about case resolutions?

  • Fadda, Marta ORCID Institute of Family Medicine (IMF), Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland - Clinical Ethics Commission (COMEC), Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale (EOC), Bellinzona, Switzerland - Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
  • 2025
Published in:
  • HEC Forum. - 2025, p. 1-2
Clinical ethics
Institutional ethics committees
Clinical ethicist
Case resolutions
English The question of whether clinical ethicists should be informed of case resolutions remains unresolved. While the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) recommends retrospective case reviews to assess whether recommendations were followed, it frames this practice solely as a quality improvement measure. While quality enhancement is a compelling rationale for ensuring that clinical ethicists are informed of the resolutions of consultations, it is not the sole justification for such transparency. Access to case resolutions strengthens ethics education, enhances accountability and transparency, facilitates contributions to the field and advocacy, and mitigates the emotional uncertainty that can arise when ethicists lack closure on complex cases. Although concerns about confidentiality and administrative constraints must be considered, they should not hinder efforts to foster a more transparent consultation process.
Collections
Language
  • English
Classification
Medicine
License
CC BY
Open access status
hybrid
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1333914
Statistics
Document views: 4 File downloads:
  • s10730-025-09549-6: 3