Hospital ethics consultants don’t perform surgery or prescribe medication. Healthcare ethics consultants are trained to help patients, families and clinicians navigate difficult medical decisions. Ethics consultants come from a range of disciplines: physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, lawyers and philosophers who have specialized training and experience in clinical ethics. Since 2018, ethics consultants have been pursuing formal certification through the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. The ethics consultant’s first task is to gather as much information as possible from everyone involved to understand the full context of the case.