Trust in Clinical Ethics Consultants and Clinical Ethics Consultation

Abstract: The concept of trust has received substantial attention in the healthcare ethics literature, especially since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. While trust in certain medical professionals (e.g., physicians, clinical researchers) has been much-discussed, relatively little has been written on trust and trustworthiness as they relate to clinical ethicists and clinical ethics consultation. And while some of the general strategies for building or maintaining trust in the healthcare context no doubt apply to clinical ethicists, the unique role of the clinical ethicist warrants a targeted discussion of trust in the context of clinical ethics consultation. In this paper, I will discuss some of the distinctive aspects of clinical ethics consultation—including the lay public’s relative unfamiliarity with it, its nascent stage of professionalization, and the circumstances that tend to trigger a consultation—that can render trust-building particularly challenging for its practitioners. Having established the ways in which trust can be particularly elusive for clinical ethics consultants, I will then discuss some strategies for how clinical ethics consultants—at both the individual consultation and broader institutional levels—can help to build and repair trust among patients and their families.