First Do No Harm ?
The Minefield of Medical Ethics
“Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species — man — acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.”
~Rachel Carson
Medical ethics concerns how to handle moral problems that come to pass when caring for a patient. The concept of ‘first do no harm’ has been upheld in medical ethics for centuries. Awareness must be taken of fact that there is no medical procedure that does not involve some type of risk.
According to the American Medical Association, there are Four Principles of Medical Ethics:
• Autonomy — respect for the patient’s right to self-determination
• Beneficence — the duty to ‘do good’
• Non-Maleficence — the duty to ‘not do bad’
• Justice — to treat all people equally and equitably
Ethics is the customary actions that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable demeanor. The simplest way to think about ethics is that it pertains to right and wrong behavior, with what we should do and what we should not do. Most people obtain their sense of right and wrong during childhood. Moral development progresses throughout one’s life, evolving as we pass through different stages of growth and maturity. Ethical norms are so prevalent in day to day life that one might be tempted to think of them as commonsense. Many societies use laws to enforce widely accepted moral standards, similar to the concepts of ethical and legal rules. Although, it is important to remember that ethics and laws are not the same; actions may be legal but unethical or illegal but ethical.
Basically no area in medicine is exempt from ethical implications. Being a part of the medical field, a physician must first and foremost recognize responsibility to patients, as well as to society, to others in the healthcare field, and ultimately oneself.
The question we must ask ourselves becomes, when a patient’s welfare is at stake, can deciding between what’s ethical or not be clear cut?
