How ethics committees can safely navigate untested legal waters.
If hospital ethics committees are to meet their goal of ensuring that society's ethical maturation follows technology's growth and impact, they need to carefully formulate their functions before putting them in operation. The author provides some important guidelines on how to match the function and form of ethics committees so that potential legal problems, such as guardianship, informed consent, malpractice, and statutory civil rights issues, can be avoided.
D004992:Ethics, Medical; D007882:Legislation, Hospital; D011367:Professional Staff Committees / Q000592:standards*; D014481:United States