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Clinical Ethics as Liaison Service: Concepts and Experiences in Collaboration with Operative Medicine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2009

GERD RICHTER
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Extract

Over the past decade, clinical ethics has received growing attention in Germany as in most European countries. In the mid-1990s, most European countries made efforts to establish healthcare ethics committees (HEC) and clinical ethics consultation (CEC) services. The development of clinical ethics discourse and activities in Germany, however, was delayed and, consequently, is still in its natal phase. Until the end of the 1990s, the only institutionalized bodies of ethical reflection were the research ethics committees at university medical centers and at the State Physician Chambers. In March 1997, the Catholic and Protestant hospital association in Germany recommended the implementation of HECs, modeled after the American HECs. Consequently, the establishment of clinical ethics consultation in the form of HECs started in Germany in denominational hospitals, followed by a small but increasing number of community hospitals.

Type
Special Section: Coming of Age in Clinical Ethics Consultation: Time for Assessment and Evaluation
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 360 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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