Medical Ethics
A basis for medical ethics can be found in the Hippocratic oath. These ethics, in sum, emphasize that doctors should keep confidences, soothe their patients' suffering, and not overstep their medical abilities. The limitations of physicians set the limits of the code. With fewer limits, there are more issues to discuss: surrogate motherhood; allocation of expensive but lifesaving modalities; an emphasis on privacy and autonomy and an evaluation of the medical system itself. A caveat is necessary. The discussion of medical ethics that follows is based on the present day American system of medical practice. While much of the ethics and ethos of medicine crosses cultures, other issues may not. For example, particular questions concerning paternalism especially related to truth telling are often culture specific. Also, the American legal system, at least according to some, encourages malpractice suits against physicians leading to interesting questions about how best to practice medicine.
A standard set of topics in medical ethics are: abortion, euthanasia, confidentiality, truth telling, medico-legal jurisprudence, genetics and medicine, allocation, experimentation and informed consent, suffering, and guilt. Each area can be associated with a basic question.
Issues in medical ethics tend to arise not from questions about moral theory but from practical and clinical concerns.
This page contains 201 words.
Medical Ethics article
Read the rest of this article.
This article contains 5,652 words
(approx. 19 pages at 300 words per page).
Order our Medical ethics Article
