Clinical Ethics Consultation ― A Practical Guide

This book provides a careful and comprehensive, step-by-step method for providing clinical ethics consultation. This Guide can be applied in almost any healthcare setting and takes the reader from establishing an intake process and developing strategies for interviewing those involved in the situation, to undertaking a consultation meeting and following up on a clinical consult. The book is an invaluable resource to any clinical ethicist, or committee or consult team member who is seeking to provide their service with rigour and quality. Written in simple language, the book explores ideas and concepts that will help the reader to understand, think through, and ultimately offer useful ethical consultation when facing ethically challenging issues.

Dr. Bashir Jiwani is Ethicist and Director of Ethics Services and Diversity Services with Fraser Health, one of Canada's largest and fastest growing health authorities. He has also served as Leader of Ethics Services for Providence Health Care in Vancouver and Northern Alberta Coordinator with the Provincial Health Ethics Network. In these roles spanning close to two decades, he has been integrally involved with directly providing clinical ethics consults, setting up clinical ethics services and assisting others to do the same. Bashir's academic background is in philosophy and public health. He has a Doctorate from the University of Alberta’s Public Health Sciences department and a Master's degree in Applied Ethics, specializing in Bioethics, from UBC. His research interests include clinical ethics consultation, ethics and public health policy, health care resource allocation, the work of ethics services in both clinical and organizational ethics, ethical decision-making, ethics in Islam, and bioethics in a multicultural context. Some of the professional committees and task forces Bashir has been involved in include the Board of the Canadian Bioethics Society, the Canadian Blood Services' Organ Donation and Transplantation Expert Advisory Committee, Practicing Healthcare Ethicists Exploring Professionalization, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC’s Ethical Standards and Conduct Review, and the BC College of Pharmacy Ethics Committee. Bashir is also an experienced speaker, having delivered hundreds of workshops and presentations across the country and internationally on issues in ethics and health ethics both for academic audiences and to health care administrators, providers, patients and the public.