What is the role of clinical ethics support in the era of e-medicine?
Abstract
The internet is becoming increasingly important in health care practice. The number of health-related web sites is rising exponentially as people seek health-related information and services to supplement traditional sources, such as their local doctor, friends, or family. The development of e-medicine poses important ethical challenges, both for health professionals and for those who provide clinical ethics support for them. This paper describes some of these challenges and explores some of the ways in which those who provide clinical ethics support might respond creatively to them. By offering ways of responding to such challenges, both electronically and face-to-face, the providers of clinical ethics support can show themselves to be an indispensable part of good quality health care provision
Footnotes
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Michael Parker BEd, PhD, is Clinical Ethicist at the Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust and University Lecturer in Medical Ethics in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Oxford. J A Muir Gray, CBE, DSc, MD, FRCP (Glas & Lond), is Director of the Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford.
