Which process involves an ethics committee weighing competing values to guide policy and patient care?

• A. Informed consent
• B. Legal deposition
• C. Ethical deliberation
• D. Ethics consultation

Answer: (D)

The main idea is that ethics committees are brought in to resolve moral conflicts by weighing competing values and duties to guide both policy and patient care. An ethics consultation is the formal service in which the ethics committee reviews a case or policy, considers the different ethical principles at stake—such as respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice—and then offers recommendations to clinicians, patients, and the institution. This helps turn moral considerations into concrete decisions in real-world care, especially in difficult or contested situations.

Informed consent, by contrast, is about ensuring a patient or surrogate understands options and agrees to a proposed treatment; it centers on communication and shared decision-making at the bedside. Legal deposition is a legal proceeding where sworn testimony is given, not an ethical guidance process for patient care. Ethical deliberation refers to the thinking process itself about moral issues, which can happen within any committee, but the service that explicitly involves the committee weighing values to guide policy and patient care is the ethics consultation.