Medical Ethics
Medical ethics is the most prominent branch of the broader field of bioethics. In general, medical ethics concerns itself with issues arising in the relationship between a health care professional, primarily a physician, and a specific patient. To a lesser extent medical ethics is concerned with issues of justice and equity in the delivery of and access to medical care.
Three sets of issues have dominated the discussion of medical ethics as a discipline since the 1960s. Each of these sets of questions has been decisively influenced by the development of modern medical science and technology. In fact, it can be argued that if not for the advances in medical technology between the early decades of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, medical ethics as the discipline it currently is simply would not exist.
Doctor and Patient
The first set of issues of decisive interest in medical ethics are those having to do directly with the relationship between the physician (or other professional) and the patient. The most important of these concerns is that having to do with the informed consent of the patient to medical interventions. In the discussion of medical ethics since World War II the principle of informed consent has achieved universal, canonical status.
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