Review of Guidance for Health Care Ethics Committees.

Abstract

Guidance for Healthcare Ethics Committees edited by D. Micah Hester and Toby Schonfeld (2012) is a comprehensive guide for members of ethics committees. The book is designed to address the three essential missions of healthcare ethics committees (HECs): (1) Consultation, (2) Policy Writing, and (3) Education. Although there is already significant literature devoted to ethics consultation, the policy writing and education functions of ethics committees get relatively little attention in the literature. It is valuable to have a source that combines all components of the HEC duties. The book addresses a wide range of topics within each area, with the greatest focus on consultation. Guidance for Healthcare Ethics Committees is divided into four parts. The first is an introductory section that gives a broad overview of ethical theories, legal issues affecting ethics committees, and cultural and religious issues that often impact the work of ethics committees. The latter three sections each tackle the three aforementioned missions of HECs. A different expert authors each chapter, although the book is unified in structure. All chapters begin with a set of learning objectives and one or more case discussions. For the most part, the case discussions successfully demonstrate how the more theoretical concepts discussed in the chapters can be applied to the work of ethics committees. Following the main content of the chapter, three questions are presented for discussion. In each chapter the three questions are framed as conceptual, pragmatic, and strategic. Overall, this structure succeeds in making the book cohesive; however, in some chapters, the questions felt shoehorned into their categories. It has been more than twenty years since the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation required that every accredited hospital have a mechanism to handle