Developing an Evaluation Tool for Assessing Clinical Ethics Consultation Skills in Simulation Based Education: The ACES Project Katherine Wasson 1 • Kayhan Parsi 1 • Michael McCarthy 1 • Viva Jo Siddall 2 • Mark Kuczewski 1 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities has created a quality attestation (QA) process for clinical ethics consultants; the pilot phase of reviewing portfolios has begun. One aspect of the QA process which is particularly challenging is assessing the interpersonal skills of individual clinical ethics con- sultants. We propose that using case simulation to evaluate clinical ethics consul- tants is an approach that can meet this need provided clear standards for assessment are identified. To this end, we developed the Assessing Clinical Ethics Skills (ACES) tool, which identifies and specifies specific behaviors that a clinical ethics consultant should demonstrate in an ethics case simulation. The aim is for the clinical ethics consultant or student to use a videotaped case simulation, along with the ACES tool scored by a trained rater, to demonstrate their competence as part of their QA portfolio. The development and piloting of the tool is described. Keywords Clinical ethics consultation Á Clinical ethics consultants Á Evaluation Á Interpersonal skills Á Quality attestation Introduction Clinical ethics consultation has moved forward as a clinical practice for several decades. Following the landmark Supreme Court decision in the case of Nancy Beth Cruzan (Cruzan v. Director Missouri Department of Health 1990), the federal legislation known as the Patient Self-Determination Act encouraged hospitals to & Katherine Wasson kawasson@luc.edu 1 The Stritch School of Medicine and The Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics, Loyola University Chicago, 2160 S. 1st Avenue, Bldg. 120, Room 280, Maywood, IL 60153, USA 2 The Department of Medical Education, The Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago, 2160 S. 1st Avenue, Maywood, IL 60153, USA 123 HEC Forum DOI 10.1007/s10730-015-9276-6