The role of clinical ethics consultations for physical therapy practice

Abstract

Background and purpose: As autonomous practitioners, and as part of multidisciplinary health teams, physical therapists encounter unique and complex ethical challenges. Frameworks and models of ethical decision-making have been developed to assist therapists to integrate ethical theory and principles with the needs, experiences, and opportunities of their patients and patient communities. However, there is little in the way of clinically based courses and practical approaches to assist physical therapists to recognize and respond to the ethical issues that they encounter in their everyday practice. Objectives: This paper proposes clinical ethics consultations as a practical mechanism to assi..