Clinical Ethics Committee
CEC Mission
Patients, families, surrogates and providers are often faced with difficult health
care decisions. Many of these decisions have complex medical, nursing, legal, psychological,
religious and social dimensions that can lead to conflict or uncertainty. In response,
University of Missouri Health Care has established the Clinical Ethics Committee
and Consult Service. Its mission is to assist patients, families and health care
team members in sorting through the ethical aspects of making difficult health care
decisions.
About the Committee
This well-defined committee and consult service within University of Missouri Health
Care is coordinated by Center for Health Ethics staff and is continuously available
to both academic and private sectors. It actively strives to foster a common dialogue
and understanding for ethical decision-making within the health care community at
large.
The committee meets monthly to discuss various hospital policies, consultation reports,
and provide a forum for discussion of some of today’s ethical issues and challenges.
The committee meetings provide an educational opportunity for students. They participate
concerning the processes the committee and consult services use in assisting the
patient population, hospital staff, and the community-at- large in dealing with
ethical issues and concerns.
The members of the Ethics Consult Service team are also members of the Clinical
Ethics Committee. Members come from departments on campus as well as the surrounding
community are represented in. Members include: physicians, nurses, administrators,
chaplains, social workers, psychologists, philosophers, ethicists, theologians,
attorneys, fellows, residents and medical students.
To contact the Clinical Ethics Committee or the Ethics Consult Service, call (573)
882-2738 during regular office hours, 8:00 - 5:00, Monday through Friday. After
hours you may call the hospital switchboard to have the on-call consultant paged.
You may also contact us via e-mail at:
healthethics@missouri.edu
This is a volunteer service. There is no charge for this consultation.
