Impact of medical ethics consultations on physicians: an exploratory study.

PURPOSE AND METHODS: Despite the increasing availability of medical ethics consultations, little research addresses the impact of these consultations on physicians. Therefore, we surveyed physician-requesters and reviewed medical charts to evaluate the 44 ethics consultations concerning individual patients at our university medical center over an 18-month period.

RESULTS: The physicians who requested these consultations said 14 consultations identified previously unrecognized ethical issues, and 18 changed patient management considerably. The medical charts showed that the most frequently overlooked issue was inappropriate family decisions for incompetent adult patients (five consultations) and the most frequent management changes involved withholding cardiopulmonary resuscitation (12 consultations).

CONCLUSIONS: Ethics consultations appeared to have considerable impact on physicians in conducting patient care.