Abstract
The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities has created a quality attestation (QA) process for clinical ethics consultants; the pilot phase of reviewing portfolios has begun. One aspect of the QA process which is particularly challenging is assessing the interpersonal skills of individual clinical ethics consultants. We propose that using case simulation to evaluate clinical ethics consultants is an approach that can meet this need provided clear standards for assessment are identified. To this end, we developed the Assessing Clinical Ethics Skills (ACES) tool, which identifies and specifies specific behaviors that a clinical ethics consultant should demonstrate in an ethics case simulation. The aim is for the clinical ethics consultant or student to use a videotaped case simulation, along with the ACES tool scored by a trained rater, to demonstrate their competence as part of their QA portfolio. The development and piloting of the tool is described.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Ken Berkowitz for his feedback on the survey tool, James Sinacore and William Adams for their assistance with the data analysis, and Cynthia Chaidez for her administrative help.
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The authors have no financial conflicts of interest to disclose.
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Wasson, K., Parsi, K., McCarthy, M. et al. Developing an Evaluation Tool for Assessing Clinical Ethics Consultation Skills in Simulation Based Education: The ACES Project. HEC Forum 28, 103–113 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-015-9276-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10730-015-9276-6