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Clinical Ethics Committees and Ethics Consultation in Psychiatry

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Ethics in Psychiatry

Part of the book series: International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine ((LIME,volume 45))

Abstract

Clinical ethics committees and ethics consultation are new ways to institutionalize ethics in medicine and healthcare. Over the last decade ethics consultation has undergone a rapid development in many European countries. This article provides an overview of this development with a special focus on the field of psychiatry. Clinical ethics consultation and psychiatric consultation services are differentiated. Structures of clinical ethics consultation, the implementation of these services in hospitals, their duties and responsibilities, e.g. clinical-ethical consultation for individual cases, development of guidelines and education in clinical ethics are discussed. Finally the current state of the art of the field, future challenges and the need of further professionalisation of clinical ethics consultation in medicine and the field of psychiatry in particular are pointed out.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Chapter 6.

  2. 2.

    For brevity and readability, the masculine form is used here to refer to mixed groups of men and women and is meant to be inclusive for both genders.

Abbreviations

CEC:

Clinical Ethics Committee

CPR:

Cardiac-Pulmonary Resuscitation

PEG:

Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Ethics and the History of Medicine, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44799, Bochum, Germany

    Jochen Vollmann

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  1. Jochen Vollmann
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Correspondence to Jochen Vollmann .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Charité Campus Benjamin Franklin, Klinik für Psychiatrie/ Psychotherapie, Universitätsklinikum Berlin, Eschenallee 3, Berlin, 14050, Germany

    Hanfried Helmchen

  2. chemin Colladon 14, Geneve, 1209, Switzerland

    Norman Sartorius

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Vollmann, J. (2010). Clinical Ethics Committees and Ethics Consultation in Psychiatry. In: Helmchen, H., Sartorius, N. (eds) Ethics in Psychiatry. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 45. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8721-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8721-8_7

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  • Online ISBN: 978-90-481-8721-8

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