[larkeith]

While I agree this type of situation is likely most often due to miscommunication, that doesn't preclude certain instances from being malicious in intent (possibly including this one - we really don't have enough information to attribute motive and cause, but there are enough odd behaviors on the Mayo clinic's part that I hesitate to employ Hanlon's razor). The hospital's ethics council only works as a solution to greed and/or malice when the patient has prior knowledge of the council, as otherwise there is little reason to believe they would be informed - and even in the case of a knowledgeable patient, the integrity of the council may be compromised due to the same conflict of interest. An unaffiliated council might be effective in avoiding this, but that fails to solve the problem of dissemination of information. Perhaps the role could be foisted onto insurance providers, but they are not impartial (having financial incentives to reduce patient expenses, as well as strong relationships with hospitals). A potential solution is to use smaller, local clinics, rather than nationwide chains, as smaller companies are generally more pliable, both to non-contentious discussion and legal pressure, but such clinics are increasingly a rarity in many areas.

It's a thorny problem, that's made more so by its perceived rarity - if few are impacted by it and even less speak out over it, it's difficult to justify reform or review, especially if it increases the financial burden of the healthcare system.

[luddaite]

Ethics councils are often hybrid in nature, including members of the local community that do not stand to benefit financially from patient care. I agree that informing patients about the presence of these governing bodies is a difficult problem. However, many bad situations would be avoided if the information was disseminated as standard procedure at the earliest possible convenience (before disagreement has a chance to arise).

[larkeith]

I was unaware of this design for the ethics councils. In that case, I agree that this would go a long way towards alleviating the problem - even if it's not completely unbiased, even a few unaffiliated members can be a major moderating influence.

Thank you for the information, your suggestion seems like a very effective way of minimizing future incidents.