The Center for Clinical Ethics

The Center for Clinical Ethics was formed to provide confidential, ethical advice to patients, family members and hospital staff dealing with difficult healthcare decisions for themselves and for others. The Center for Clinical Ethics includes 6 different Ethics Committees that provide ethical guidance at the different delivery networks within the Yale New Haven Health System. Each Ethics Committee includes medical physicians, psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, chaplains, bioethicists, and non-Yale New Haven Health community members bound by legal confidentiality agreements to protect patient and family privacy.

We offer patients and families guidance concerning:

• Uncertainty as to who should make health care decisions for patients too sick to speak for themselves
• Religious or cultural beliefs that conflict with medical treatment
• Disagreements over starting, continuing, or ending medical treatments
• End of life issues, such as the removal of a feeding tube
• Decisions about organ donation
• Questions about ethical policies or guidelines
• Concerns about advance directives
• The rights of a patient