The primary objective of The Health Care Ethics Con sultant is to focus attention on an immediate practical problem: the role and responsibilities, the education and training, and the certification and accreditation of health care ethics consultants. The principal questions addressed in this book include: Who should be considered health care ethics consultants? Whom should they advise? What should be their responsi bilities and what kind of training should they have? Should there be some kind of accreditation or certification program (...) to ensure that those who call themselves ethics consultants are in fact qualified to advise, consult, research, and write in health care ethics? The distinguished authors ofthese articles are persons with diverse backgrounds, interests, presumptions, and val ues. Not surprisingly, therefore, diverse responses have emerged to the questions posed. Though the book's chapters are individually authored, they are informed by the group discussions that went on during active workshop sessions, and by knowledge of the contributions of others. All of the chapters meaningfully represent their consensus. This is not to say that there were no disagreements regarding specific details, but rather that there were no fundamental objections on the book's basic content among a panel of authors who share basic premises regarding the role, responsibilities, education, and certifica tion of health care ethics consultants. (shrink)

Emerging biomedical technologies often raise new research ethics questions that have the potential to impact not just patients and families, but society as a whole. At the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, we recognized the importance of a proactive approach to addressing the implications of biomedical research at an early stage. We have therefore established a new ethics consultation service for clinical and basic scientists. Our experiences suggest that demand for such services extends beyond academia to companies and funding institutions. (...) The results of the pilot program also indicate that knowledge of scientific methods and process is important for consultants. Consultations resulted in modifications of study design, research procedures, consent forms, grant applications, publications, and institutional policies. Preliminary evaluations indicate that the researchers value the outcomes of these consultations and especially the delivery of concrete recommendations. Consultations are also useful to bioethicists and institutions as a way to identify areas of ethical concern to researchers. (shrink)