Patient and Family Resources
Ethics Center

Contact Us

Office Phone: 513-636-3656

Consultant on call: 513-636-8587.

Fax: 513-636-4971

Ethics Center at a Glance

The Ethics Center at Cincinnati Children’s helps families, healthcare professionals, researchers and administrators address the ethical issues that may arise during the treatment and care of our patients. We are dedicated to collaborating with patients and families, and have three main areas of focus:

Clinical ethics. In collaboration with the Ethics Committee and Ethics Consultation Subcommittee, we help patients, families and healthcare providers address ethical issues during clinical treatment. The center also helps healthcare providers and administrators address broader policy issues.
Research ethics. In collaboration with the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training, we help researchers and research participants consider ethical issues entailed by their activities.
Organizational ethics. We support efforts of the Cincinnati Children’s administration to reflect on the ethical implications of the medical center’s business decisions.

“Particularly in an institution like Cincinnati Children’s, where so many of the children have rare and complex conditions, there are ethical considerations in many of the decisions doctors and families must make,” says Ethics Center director Armand Antommaria, MD, PhD.

Ethics Consultations

Anyone directly involved in a patient’s care may request an ethics consultation. This includes the patient, the patient’s parent or guardian, and medical center faculty and staff.

This service may be helpful to you if you are uncertain about what is the ethically right thing to do or if there is disagreement about what is ethically right. Patients and families might, for example, have questions about whether it is appropriate to consider an order not to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or discontinue medically provided nutrition or hydration.

Consultations are done by faculty with advanced training in ethics and certification as Healthcare Ethics Consultants.

Our aim is not to tell parties what to do, but to help them think through the relevant ethical issues. We may convene a group meeting to facilitate communication among the parties and develop a mutually acceptable plan. We will provide an ethical analysis of the dilemma or conflict and provide follow-up as appropriate.

Cincinnati Children’s provides ethics consultation free of charge to patients and families.

To request an ethics consultation call 513-636-8587. If the consultant on call does not answer, please leave a message. If the consultant does not call back within 10 minutes, please call back

Ethics Committee

The Ethics Committee is a multidisciplinary group that develops and reviews policy, provides education and reviews clinical ethics consultations. Members include parents, nurses, physicians, psychologists, social workers, lawyers and ethicists. It focuses on policies with significant ethical components such as informed consent and advance directives. Its Education Subcommittee provides teaching on clinical ethics throughout Cincinnati Children’s.

Ethics Consultation Subcommittee

The Ethics Consultation Subcommittee consults with patients, families and staff to help address ethical uncertainty or conflict. Sometimes the right thing to do is unclear and sometimes people disagree about what is the right thing to do. The consultants, who have specialized training and experience, help individuals and teams think through the ethical issues and develop a plan. The subcommittee does not evaluate complaints of unethical behavior.