Medical ethics
Medical ethics is the discipline of evaluating the merits, risks, and social concerns of activities in the field of medicine.
Ethical thinkers have suggested many methods to help evaluate the ethics of a situation. These methods provide principles that doctors should consider while decision making.
Six of the principles commonly included are:
- Beneficence - a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)
- Non-maleficence - never do harm (primum non nocere), from the Hippocratic Oath.
- 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 - the patient should not be lied to, and deserves to know the whole truth about their illness and treatment.
Principles like these do not give answers as to how to handle a particular situation but guide doctors on what to consider in particular situations. The principles sometimes contradict each other leading to ethical dilemmas. For example, the principles of autonomy and beneficence clash when patients refuse life-saving blood transfusion.
In the United Kingodom, General Medical Council provides clear modern guidance in the form of its '' and '' statements.
Death and dying
See also Do Not Resuscitate, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
Reproductive medicine
Medical research
Distribution and utilization of research and care
