Ethical consultations at Salem Health

Tough situations often come up at a hospital. Patients, families, or hospital staff may be faced with the responsibility of making difficult decisions. Sometimes, the people involved find themselves locked in disagreements about what to do.

Salem Health has a clinical ethicist that is available to help patients, families and staff to sort through hard choices — free of charge.

A clinical ethics consultation may help when someone is:

• Unsure of their ethical obligations.
• Involved in a disagreement that is affecting care.
• Facing a difficult ethical dilemma that requires a decision.
• Needing clarification about how advance directives or POLST apply.
• Having questions about what to do when a patient lacks the ability to make his or her own medical decisions.
• Feeling ethically uncomfortable about what is going on.
  

The goal of a clinical ethics consultation is to help patients, families, staff, and providers in decision making, and assist in resolving conflicts that arise in the course of delivering care.

You can contact Salem Health’s ethicist, Hong Lee, at 503-814-2333.