Introduction Flashcards
current issues contributing to the importance of ethical considerations
- increase in technology
- better informed patients
- public scrutiny
- litigation
Potential conflicts
- disagreement over the definition of “benefit” and “harm” between health care providers and patients and families
- and between providers and patients and third party payers
medical ethics
- system of moral principles that applies values and judgments to the practice of medicine and addresses:
- the broad ethical principles that impact on patients, clinicians, and healthcare institutions
- the code of ethics of healthcare providers, first delineated in the Hippocratic oath
Oath of Hippocrates - medical ethics
- “primum non nocere” - first do no harm
- always look to the good of the patient
- place a high value on human life
- perform only within one’s training and skill
- refrain from improper relations with patient
- maintain patient’s secrets inviolate
- do not violate community laws or morals
“ethics” vs “morality”
- both focus on right and wrong
- differ regarding whether there is: consensus vs. conflict of values, uniform code of behavior, and authoritative sources
ethics definition
refer to rules or standards provided by an external source, e.g., professional or workplace codes of conduct or religious principles; in other words the principles of “right conduct” (outside external source)
morals definition
refer to an individual’s own principles regarding right and wrong, upon which one’s judgements of right and wrong are based (personal, internal source)
ethics
- systematic rules or principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior, striving for right conduct
- generally without a single accepted code of behavior, or authoritative source
- accepting uncertainty
- aims to transcend the diversity of moral traditions in its response to conflicting beliefs about right and wrong conduct
Professional ethics
- the ethical norms, values, and principles that guide a profession and the ethics of decisions made within the profession
- every practitioner, upon entering the health care profession, is invested with the responsibility to adhere to the standards of ethical practice and conduct set by the profession
Bioethics
- the ethics of medical and biological research;
- the study of ethical problems arising from biological research and its applications in such fields as organ transplantation, genetic engineering, or artificial insemination
“normative” ethics
- an approach that examines or assigns rightness or wrongness to actions
- there are several normative ethical theories that we will examine
virtue ethics
focuses on the inherent character of a person rather than on specific actions
deontological ethics
- focuses on the status of the action, rule, or disposition itself (has various forms…)
- argues that decisions should be made considering the factors of one’s duties and others’ rights
- includes: Kantianism, contractualism, and natural rights
consequentialism
- focuses on the status of the action, rule, or disposition itself (has various forms…)
- argues that the morality of an action is contingent on the action’s outcome or result
- theories include: utilitarianism, ethics of car, pragmatic ethics
Kantianism
- type of deontology
- roots morality in humanity’s rational capacity and asserts certain inviolable moral laws
