Phases of a Pandemic Surge: The Experience of an Ethics Service in New York City during COVID-19.

Phases of a Pandemic Surge: The Experience of an Ethics Service in New York City during COVID-19. J Clin Ethics. 2020;31(3):219-227 Authors: Huberman BJ, Mukherjee D, Gabbay E, Knowlton SF, Green DST, Pandya N, Meredith N, Walker JM, Shapiro ZE, Hersh JE, Chisholm MF, Waldman SA, MacKenzie CR, de Melo-Martín I, Fins JJ Abstract When the COVID-19 surge hit New York City hospitals, the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and our affiliated ethics consultation services, faced waves of ethical issues sweeping forward with intensity and urgency. In this article, we describe our experience over an eight-week period (16 March through 10 May 2020), and describe three types of services: clinical ethics consultation (CEC); service practice communications/interventions (SPCI); and organizational ethics advisement (OEA). We tell this narrative through the prism of time, describing the evolution of ethical issues and trends as the pandemic unfolded. We delineate three phases: anticipation and preparation, crisis management, and reflection and adjustment. The first phase focused predominantly on ways to address impending resource shortages and to plan for remote ethics consultation, and CECs focused on code status discussions with surrogates. The second phase was characterized by the dramatic convergence of a rapid increase in the number of critically ill patients, a growing scarcity of resources, and the reassignment/red...
Source: Journal of Clinical Ethics - Category: Medical Ethics Tags: J Clin Ethics Source Type: research