Meeting the Challenge of COVID-19: The Response of Two Ethics Consultation Services in New York City

Kenneth M Prager; Joseph J Fins

Meeting the Challenge of COVID-19: The Response of Two Ethics Consultation Services in New York City

J Clin Ethics. 2020 Fall;31(3):209-211.

Authors

Kenneth M Prager¹, Joseph J Fins²

Affiliations

¹ Professor of Medicine, Director of Clinical Ethics, and Chair of the Ethics Committee at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, New York USA. kmp1@cumc.columbia.edu.
² William E. Davis, Jr., MD Professor of Medical Ethics, Professor of Medicine, and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College; and is Director of Medical Ethics and an Attending Physician at New York Presbyterian Weil Cornell Medicine in New York, New York USA. jjfins@med.cornell. edu.

PMID: 32773402

Abstract

From mid-March through May 2020, New York City was the world's epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its hospitals faced an unparalleled surge of patients who were critically ill with the virus. In addition to putting an enormous strain on medical resources, the pandemic presented many ethical issues to emotionally and physically stressed clinicians and hospital administrators. Analyses of the challenges faced by the ethics consultation services of the two campuses of New York Presbyterian Hospital, and how they assisted their clinician and administrative colleagues, is the subject of the following four articles.

MeSH terms

Betacoronavirus
COVID-19
Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology
Ethics Consultation*
Humans
New York City / epidemiology
Pandemics / ethics*
Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology
SARS-CoV-2