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For patients and their families undergoing cancer care, as well as for clinicians providing this care, ethical issues may arise. An ethics issue involves any conflict or uncertainty involving patients¡¯ values and preferences, or clinicians¡¯ professional obligations in the clinical setting. You may want to contact our clinical ethics service when facing situations involving:

• Treatment decisions and care goals - When patients feel uncertain about their treatment options or goals of care
  
• Conflicts about care plans - When there is disagreement, uncertainty, or conflict between:
  
  • Patients and their families
  • Patients (or families) and the healthcare team
  • Multiple surrogate decision-makers
  • Healthcare team members
• Moral distress - When clinicians and healthcare teams experience ethical concerns about patient care
  
• Surrogate decision-making - When someone other than the patient needs to make medical decisions on the patient's behalf
  
• Life-sustaining treatments - When there are concerns about starting, continuing, withholding, or withdrawing life-sustaining treatments
  
• Treatment appropriateness - When questions arise about whether a requested treatment is ethically appropriate
  

The Center for Clinical Ethics in Cancer Care offers a 24/7 consultation service. MD Anderson¡¯s Clinical Ethics Consultation Service (CECS) can help resolve issues like those above. The CECS is staffed by trained and certified clinical ethicists (HEC-C).

The Clinical Ethics team collaborates with patients, families, caregivers, and clinicians. This team helps identify ethically justifiable choices, facilitate family meetings or care conferences, and provides recommendations. While the CECS does not make decisions on behalf of the patients, families, or clinicians, it does help resolve ethics issues in a structured manner.

Any patient, surrogate decision-maker, clinician or healthcare professional may request a clinical ethics consultation. All consultations are confidential.

Contact the Ethics Consultation Service

Clinical Ethicists are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Please page 713-404-2863 or, if a clinician or healthcare professional, put an order or referral in EPIC for a clinical ethics consultation.