Problems in Testing Clinical Ethicists' Competence in Health Law

摘要

White and colleagues' article (2014) about a potential examination for clinical ethics consultants is a helpful contribution to the discussion about assuring that consultants are competent. ASBH has identified nine areas of "core knowledge" on which consultants could be tested. One of those areas is "relevant health law," the testing of which White and colleagues acknowledge will present special problems. I discuss here two problems in testing health law knowledge that are not directly raised by White and colleagues but that follow from their approach. The first problem is an assumption that occasionally seems at play in the article: that competent practicing ethics consultants can work on the basis of generalizations about health law rather than from the specifics about health law in their jurisdiction. The second problem concerns pass rates in multistate examinations.