Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026

Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
Published on: February 17, 2011
Impact of medical ethics consultations on physicians: an exploratory study
1Department of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, Texas.
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.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Obedience
Ethics and Bioethics
Nursing Ethical Principles II
Consider the following scenario, which illustrates how these principles are applied in the care of Mr. John, a fifty-year-old teacher diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.
Initially, Mr. John's cancer...
Ethical Issues
Ethical Concerns in Healthcare:
Ethical Dilemmas I
Let us explore some examples to understand the potentially complex moral decisions nurses face.
Take the case of caring for minors, particularly in areas related to reproductive...
Ethical Dilemmas II

