How do I request an ethics consultation at a hospital?

Ask any of the following: your nurse, the spiritual care office, patient relations, or the social worker. You do not need a doctor to request it for you, you do not need to be Catholic, and it is free.

Ethics consultation is one of the most underused services in a hospital. It is not a tribunal and it does not overrule you. It is a small group whose job is to help patients, families and clinicians work through a difficult decision: a feeding tube, a disagreement between siblings, a treatment the team believes is futile that the family wants continued, or an advance directive that seems to conflict with what is being proposed.

The Ethical and Religious Directives expect Catholic facilities to make this available. Directive 26 says patients and surrogates should have access to "morally sound resources and guidance, including pastoral counsel and ethics consultations, so as to be able to form his or her conscience."

If the situation involves religion as well as medicine, ask for the chaplain and the ethics consultation together rather than separately. Families in conflict at the end of life are usually not arguing about theology; they are frightened of abandoning someone, and it helps when both kinds of authority are in the room at once.