Medical Ethic
Medical ethics is primarily a field of applied ethics, the study of moral values and judgments as they apply to medicine. As a scholarly discipline, medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings as well as work on its history, philosophy, theology, and sociology.
Medical ethics tends to be understood narrowly as an applied professional ethics, whereas bioethics appears to have more expansive concerns, touching upon the philosophy of science and the critique of biotechnology. Still, the two fields often overlap and the distinction is more a matter of style than professional consensus.
Medical ethics shares many principles with other branches of healthcare ethics, such as nursing ethics.
Medical ethics tends to be understood narrowly as an applied professional ethics, whereas bioethics appears to have more expansive concerns, touching upon the philosophy of science and the critique of biotechnology. Still, the two fields often overlap and the distinction is more a matter of style than professional consensus.
Medical ethics shares many principles with other branches of healthcare ethics, such as nursing ethics.
Values in medical ethics
Six of the values that commonly apply to medical ethics discussions are:
Beneficence - a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)
Non-maleficence - "first, do no harm" (primum non nocere).
Autonomy - the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (Voluntas aegroti suprema lex.)
Justice - concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment.
Dignity - the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to dignity.
Truthfulness and honesty - the concept of informed consent has increased in importance since the historical events of the Doctors' Trial of the Nuremberg trials and Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
Six of the values that commonly apply to medical ethics discussions are:
Beneficence - a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)
Non-maleficence - "first, do no harm" (primum non nocere).
Autonomy - the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (Voluntas aegroti suprema lex.)
Justice - concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment.
Dignity - the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to dignity.
Truthfulness and honesty - the concept of informed consent has increased in importance since the historical events of the Doctors' Trial of the Nuremberg trials and Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
1 comment:
Thanks for the information on medical ethics. You were able to put it down in a way I understood!!!
We recently wrote an article (http://brainblogger.com/2008/06/23/ethics-101-patients-who-hide-the-truth/) on ethics at Brain Blogger (http://brainblogger.com/). What if a patient did not tell a doctor all the information they could about their condition/s? Would that be ethically wrong, or should the patients have the right to keep that information to themselves?
We would like to read your comments on our article. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kelly
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