Contact

T +49 89 4140 4041

E office.ethics@mh.tum.de

Mon-Thu: 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Fri: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. (core hours)

Clinical Ethics

Within the framework of clinical ethics, the Institute offers applied ethics in everyday clinical practice. The aim is to promote and support a competent approach to ethical challenges in patient care and clinical work. It is an offer for employees of all professional groups of the clinic as well as for patients, relatives and friends.

Currently, the Clinical Ethics offering is represented by the Clinical Ethics Committee (KEK), the Mobile Ethics Team and the senior physician for clinical ethics.

The further development of ethics structures and services at the hospital is carried out in close cooperation with employees in order to utilize existing processes and implement suitable structures in everyday clinical practice in the long term.

Clinical Ethics
KEK

Office

Members

Tasks

Taskforces

Mobile Ethics Team

Events

Clinical Ethics Consulting

Ethical case analysis

Ethics Consults

Ethics Visit

Research Projects

Clinical Ethics offers:

  • Concrete advice on ethical issues: as an ethics consultation, as an ethics case discussion on the ward or as an ethics case consultation in the KEK. KEK.
  • The KEK The KEK stands as a forum for the discussion of ethical issues at the hospital and for ethics case consultation
  • The joint development of new services, such as consults and visit support, is a priority in order to make well-founded consultation possible.
  • The Clinical Ethics Forum: as an interdisciplinary continuing education series and interprofessional exchange on ethical topics for employees of all professional groups.
  • Public events for topics on clinical ethics.

 

Taskforces of the KEK:

  • the Mobile Ethics Team for the offers on the wards
  • A working group on handling precautionary documents and emergency forms.
  • Additional working groups are planned that will work on nursing ethics issues and other key ethical topics.

Ethical issues in everyday clinical practice include:

  • What are options when treating physicians consider different courses of action?
  • What should be done if there is disagreement (dissent) about the therapeutic goal or treatment options?
  • How should the use of invasive diagnostics or therapy be decided in people with severe complex and/or advanced disease?
  • How should treatment decisions be made at the beginning of life when the treatment team and parents have different ideas?
  • What should be done if minors capable of giving consent express different treatment wishes than their parents?
  • When is an advance directive also valid in an emergency?
  • How should decisions be made if the patient is incapable of giving consent and there is disagreement about the presumed will?
  • How should patients be supported when restraints are needed?

Who can make contact?

The offers can be used by employees of all professional groups of the clinic from all areas, by patients as well as by relatives and authorized representatives.

Typical occasions to make contact are:

  • When concerns, questions or a problem are perceived.
  • If there is uncertainty or discomfort in the current situation.
  • If regular ethics offerings are to be developed together.
  • Education and training opportunities are desired.
Kathrin Knochel, MD Senior consultant for ethics in healthcareTel.: +49 89 4140 7255 More details

Contact Clinical Ethics Committee

Chair: Prof. Dr. med. Alena Buyx
Management: Dr. med. Kathrin Knochel

Secretariat of the office
T 089 4140 – 4041
E klinische.ethik@mri.tum.de

Feedback, suggestions and wishes are always welcome!

If you are interested in actively participating, please contact us in person, by phone or by mail!

Clinical ethics events

Events

News
April 22, 2024 Building a house without foundations? A 24-country qualitative interview study on artificial intelligence in intensive care medicine Participants had generally positive views about the potential use of AI in ICUs but also reported some well-known concerns about the use of AI in clinical practice and important technical and non-technical barriers to the implementation of AI. Important differences existed between ICUs regarding their current readiness to implement AI.
March 20, 2024 New Nature article on Federal Learning In their new article published by Nature, authors Marieke Bak, Vince I. Madai, Leo Anthony Celi, Georgios A. Kaissis, Ronald Cornet, Menno Maris, Daniel Rueckert, Alena Buyx and Stuart McLennan argue that although federated learning is often seen as a promising solution to allow AI innovation while addressing privacy concerns, this technology does not fix all underlying data ethics concerns. Benefiting from federated learning in digital health requires acknowledgement of its limitations.
February 13, 2024 Swiss residents' information behavior perceptions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal qualitative study People's information behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic was challenged through vast amounts of information, misinformation, and disinformation. This study sets out to address the research gap of longitudinal, qualitative inquiries about how people's information behavior changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to assess how residents of German-speaking Switzerland perceived and evaluated information gathering during a global health crisis.
January 16, 2024 A breathing space for the planet: COVID-19 as an opportunity to rethink human-nature relationships At the beginning of 2020, life came to a kind of standstill. Around the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered radical changes in people's lives. The rapid reduction in mobility and the resulting decrease in fossil fuel consumption and noise pollution led to short-term environmental improvements worldwide. Our research findings, which we briefly present here in this blog, show that people believed the pandemic could mean a moment of recovery for the planet.
January 10, 2024 Solidarity is based on reciprocity: How solidarity changed during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany The publication by Franziska Schönweitz and Bettina Zimmermann in BMC Public Health is embedded in the SolPan ("Solidarity in Times of a Pandemic") Research Commons. Co-authors are Nora Hangel, Amelia Fiske, Stuart McLennan, Anna Sierawska and Alena Buyx.
November 7, 2023 Vulnerability and Response-Ability in the Pandemic Marketplace: Developing an Ethic of Care for Provisioning in Crisis Through close analysis of a large set of in-depth interview data collected in four countries (Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the UK) at two intervals during the pandemic (spring and autumn 2020), this study highlights care as a practical ethos in practices of provisioning.
See more News

Book recommendations:

  • Praxisbuch Ethik in der Medizin, edited by Georg Marckmann, Medizinisch Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft 2015
  • Praxisbuch Ethik in der Intensivmedizin, Konkrete Entscheidungshilfen in Grenzsituationen, edited by Salomon, Fred Medizinisch Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft 2018.
  • Advance Care Planning, Von der Patientenverfügung zur gesundheitlichen Vorausplanung, Editors in der Schmitten, Jürgen; Coors, Michael; Jox, Ralf Kohlhammer Verlag 2015

 

Contact

The Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine welcomes your contact.

T  +49 89 4140 4041
M  office.ethics@mh.tum.de

Mon-Thu: 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Fri: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. (core hours)
Ismaninger street 22
81675 Munich
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