The roles of a bioethicist on an organ transplantation service

Organ transplantation centers have expanded and increased in the last 20 years as transplant recipient outcomes have improved steadily and transplantation has moved from experimentation to treatment of choice for several indications. Transplantation presents difficult ethical and legal challenges for the transplant community and society. These include declarations of death, consent to donation and allocation of a scarce societal resource, i.e. transplantable organs. Policy and practice reflect the law, societal beliefs and prevailing values. A bioethicist contributes to a transplant team by clarifying values held by various stakeholders or embodied in decisions and policies, conducting clinical consultations, developing and interpreting policy and researching the ethics of innovations for rationing and increasing available supply of organs for transplantation. The bioethicist's interdisciplinary education, preparation, experience and familiarity with ethics, law, sociology and philosophy and skills of mediation, communication and ethical analysis contribute to addressing and resolving many issues in transplantation. This paper outlines the various roles of a bioethicist on a transplantation service, using case examples to illustrate some of the ethical issues.