“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.” Excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath, widely believed to be written by Hippocrates or his disciples, Greece , 4 th Century B.C.
Ethics is the study of what is morally right. It is concerned with the question: What is the right thing to do? Ethics is a branch of philosophy. Philosophy has been defined as the critical evaluation of assumptions and arguments. Ethics is a rational and analytic exploration of the concepts, beliefs, reasons and attitudes that relate to doing what is morally right.
Medical ethics is the study of ethics as applied to medicine. It has a long tradition. The Hippocratic Oath, written 2500 years ago, provided doctors with a code of ethics including, for example, high standards of confidentiality.
In modern medical practice, there are many areas in which medical ethics are relevant. Current areas of controversy include: euthanasia, presumed consent for organ donation, and what should be the foetal age limit for abortions. New technologies, such as modern genetics, raise new ethical issues. Ethical dilemmas also arise in everyday healthcare. One common dilemma in mental health is whether, and when, to force people to have treatment without their consent. Another common dilemma is whether, and how, mental disorders affect how much weight we should place on a person's own decisions. We are interested in these two particular dilemmas.
If you are interested, you can learn more about medical ethics and the ethics of treatment decision-making in these books:
• Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback) by Tony Hope, Oxford University Press ( 23 Sep 2004 )
• Philosophical Medical Ethics (Paperback) by Raanan Gillon, Wiley and Sons.
• Principles of Biomedical Ethics (Paperback) by Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress, Oxford University Press Inc, USA ; 6 th Revised Edition ( 15 May 2008 )
• Deciding for Others: The Ethics of Surrogate Decision Making (Studies in Philosophy & Health Policy) (Paperback) by Allen E. Buchanan and Dan W. Brock, Cambridge University Press ( 26 Jan 1990 )
