Formal clinical ethics review first developed in the USA and most hospitals there have structures in place. This is often a clinical ethics committee. Developments have been slower in the UK, where there has been uncertainty and variability about the role of clinical ethics committees. Even in the USA, their exact role is uncertain. Although we now have a good idea of the mechanisms for ethical...

Ethics committees are the most important practical instrument of clinical ethics in Belgium and fulfil three tasks: the ethical review of experimental protocols, advising on the ethical aspects of healthcare practice, and ethics consultation. In this article the authors examine the current situation of ethics committees in Belgium from the perspective of clinical ethics. Firstly, the most impor...

The proliferation of clinical ethics in health care institutions around the world has raised the question about the qualifications of those who serve on ethics committees and ethics consultation services. This paper discusses some of weaknesses associated with the most common educational responses to this concern and proposes a complementary approach. Since the majority of those involved in cli...

OBJECTIVE The field of clinical ethics is relatively new and expanding. Best practices in clinical ethics against which one can benchmark performance have not been clearly articulated. The first step in developing benchmarks of clinical ethics services is to identify and understand current practices. DESIGN AND SETTING Using a retrospective case study approach, the structure, activities, and ...

The idea of passive euthanasia has recently been attacked in a particularly clear and explicit way by an ‘‘Ethics Task Force’’ established by the European Association of Palliative Care (EAPC) in February 2001. It claims that the expression ‘‘passive euthanasia’’ is a contradiction in terms and hence that there can be no such thing. This paper critically assesses the main arguments for the Task...

Avariety of medical professional societies have developed ethics practice guidelines or position statements regarding specific ethics issues (1–6). The Endocrine Society published its Code of Ethics for practice in 2001 (1); however, none of the practice guidelines are specific to thyroidology. In the field of thyroidology, specific clinical ethics issues arise in different clinical contexts. F...

Address: Director, Bioethics Centre, Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town, Observatory 7925, Western Cape, South Africa, The Husein Lalji Dewraj Professor of Paediatrics & Child Health, Department of Paediatrics, The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan, Director, Program on Applied Ethics and Biotechnology, Professor of Public Health Sciences and Surgery, University of Toronto Joi...

background: in modern biomedicine, there is an increasing speed of development of new ideas and technologies and, consequently, increasing speed of new applicable knowledge. the rapid advances in medicine and biotechnology during recent decades, is accompanied with important discussions about new questions and dilemmas in the field of professional ethics. the increased recognition of ethical pr...