[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.