The Clinical Ethics Program Director is responsible for the overall planning, development, implementation, operation and evaluation of ethics consultation, ethics education, and integration with the Hospital Ethics Committee (Optimum Care Committee) at Massachusetts General Hospital. The aim of this work is to support and develop the ethical awareness and agency of all members of the organization related to clinical care. Areas of activity include ethics consultation, education, ethics committee participation, research, scholarship and policy development. The Director works in close coordination with the Physician Co-Director of Clinical Ethics and executive leadership of the organization to achieve these goals.
Responsibilities:
Provides ethics consultation
- Serves as primary ethics consultant a minimum of 10 days per month
- Provides continuity of coverage related to ethics consults initially handled by other consultants
Responsible for day-to-day direction and coordination of the Ethics Consult Service, including:
- Manages call schedules for coverage of ethics consultation requests
- Helps develop policies, guidelines and educational materials to support the ethics consultation function
- Helps facilitate ethics rounds in various hospital units
- Helps direct the maintenance of the database of ethics consultation reports and trends
- Manages ethics consultation evaluation and quality improvement
Ethics Committee
- Coordinates with chairperson and Physician Co-Director of Clinical Ethics to accomplish Ethics Committee tasks of consultation, education and policy development.
- Provides case materials and coordinates clinical attendance.
- Collaboratively manages administrative aspects of committee including membership, requests for attendance, maintenance of minutes.
- Initiates new Ethics Committee members to history, roles and responsibilities of membership.
- Collaborates with chairperson to plan and implement development of the Ethics Committee.
Education
- Provides ethics education as requested by clinical and administrative areas of the hospital.
- Develops and maintains collaborative relationship with Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics and other Harvard teaching hospitals through teaching, collaborative networking and problem solving, training resources and mentoring students, clinicians and interns.
- Oversees internal and external communication on clinical ethics issues.
- Helps organize ethics grand rounds and other educational activities related to ethics.
Research
- Encourages and collaborates on clinical ethics research activities.
- Supports ethics resources in IRBs.
- Participates in hospital committees as needed.
- Maintains current knowledge of ethical trends and emerging knowledge, legal issues related to ethics and ethical theory.
Qualifications:
- Minimum 5 years clinical healthcare experience.
- Advanced nursing or other clinical degree, including social work
- Advanced degree in bioethics
- RN or MSW preferred
- Experience in working with teams in a complex organization.
- Current Ethics Consultation certification required or to be attained within first year of hire. Certification must be maintained while employed in this position.
- Responsible for training, supervision and delegation to Administrative Coordinator.
The General Hospital Corporation is an Equal Opportunity Employer. By embracing diverse skills, perspectives and ideas, we choose to lead. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, age, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, military service, genetic information, and/or other status protected under law. We will ensure that all individuals with a disability are provided a reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.
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Massachusetts General Hospital
Aug 05, 2025