[ noun ] a philosopher who specializes in ethics <noun.person>
Ethicist \Eth"i*cist\ ([e^]th"[i^]*s[i^]st), n. One who is versed in ethics, or has written on ethics.
Alan L. Otten's excellent feature on Dr. Charles Culver and the Dartmouth Ethics Committee (front page, March 6) illustrates the consulting role of the hospital ethicist.
"It calls into question who the doctor is working for," said Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist at the University of Minnesota. "Traditionally, you are supposed to have allegiance to your patient first and foremost.
She and ethicist Arthur Caplan at the University of Minnesota said the technique is probably too cumbersome and costly to make it widely popular for choosing a baby's sex without any medical reason.
But he noted the hospital's doctors had been transplanting portions of cadaver livers into children since 1984, "with better than 80 percent success." A medical ethicist said using a parent as donor raises some serious questions.
Ronald Bayer of Hastings Center, an ethicist, opposed mandatory pre-marital and hospital testing as "a maneuver toward universal compulsory testing."