Medical Ethics

• Medical Ethics

• Ethics

• Ethics is the study of morality – careful and systematic reflection on and analysis of
• moral decisions and behaviour.

• Medical ethics definition

• is a system of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of 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.

• The study of medical ethics

• The study of medical ethics prepares medical students to recognize difficult situations and to deal with them in rational and principled manner.

• Values in medical ethics

• A common framework used in the analysis of medical ethics is the "four principles" approach
• There are four basic moral principles, which are to be judged and weighed against each other, with attention given to the scope of their application. The four principles of medical ethics are:-

• 1-Respect for autonomy(self-determination):
•  the patient has the right to refuse or choose his treatment.
• 2-Beneficence:
• a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient.

• 3-Non- maleficence:
• "first, do no harm”
• 4-Justice:
• concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment (fairness and equality).

• Other values which are sometimes discussed include:
• 1- Respect for persons
• the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to be treated with dignity.
• 2-Truthfulness and honesty
• the concept of informed consent .

• Conflicts between autonomy and beneficence

• Autonomy can come into conflict with beneficence when patients disagree with recommendations that health care professionals believe are in the patient's best interest. When the patient's interests conflict with the patient's welfare, different societies settle the conflict in a wide range of manners.

• Western medicine generally defers to the wishes of a mentally competent patient to make his own decisions, even in cases where the medical team believes that he is not acting in his own best interests. However, many other societies prioritize beneficence over autonomy.

• On the other hand, autonomy and beneficence/non-maleficence may also overlap. For example, a breach of patients' autonomy may cause decreased confidence for medical services in the population and subsequently less willingness to seek help, which in turn may cause inability to perform beneficence.

• Beneficence is a task worthy of many to complete due to its difficulty to perform under extreme circumstances that are not correlated directly with individuals seeking euthanasia.

• The principles of autonomy and beneficence/non- maleficence may also be expanded to include effects on the relatives of patients or even the medical practitioners, the overall population and economic issues when making medical decisions.

• Medical ethics & professionalism

• From Hippocrates – the founder of medical ethics came the concept of medicine as
• a profession , whereby physicians make a public promise that they will place the interests of their patient above their own interests

• Medical ethics and human rights

• In recent times , medical ethics has been greatly influenced by human rights .
• In a pluralistic and multicultural world with
• many different moral traditions , the major international human rights agreements can provide a foundation for medical ethics that is acceptable across national
• and cultural boundaries.

• Medical ethics and low

• Medical ethics is closely related to law.
• In most countries there are laws that specify
• how physicians and nurses are required to deal with ethical issues in patient care and research .

• Medical ethics and low

• In addition , the medical licensing and regulatory officials in each country can punish physicians and nurses for ethical violations.
• But ethics and low are not identical.

• Medical ethics and low

• Ethics often prescribes higher standards of behaviour than the law , and occasionally ethics requires that physicians and nurses disobey laws that demand unethical behaviour.

• In making decisions , it is helpful to know what others physicians and nurses would do in similar situations.

• Compassion ,competence, and autonomy are not exclusive to medicine , however ,physicians are expected to exemplify them to a higher degree than other people , including members of many other professions.

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