Values in Medical Ethics
A common framework used in the analysis of medical ethics is the "four principles" approach postulated by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress in their textbook Principles of biomedical ethics. It recognizes 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 are:
- Respect for autonomy - the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (Voluntas aegroti suprema lex.)
- Beneficence - a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (Salus aegroti suprema lex.)
- Non-maleficence - "first, do no harm" (primum non nocere).
- 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:
- Respect for persons - the patient (and the person treating the patient) have the right to be treated with dignity.
- Truthfulness and honesty - the concept of informed consent has increased in importance since the historical events of the Doctors' Trial of the Nuremberg trials and Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
Values such as these do not give answers as to how to handle a particular situation, but provide a useful framework for understanding conflicts.
When moral values are in conflict, the result may be an ethical dilemma or crisis. Sometimes, no good solution to a dilemma in medical ethics exists, and occasionally, the values of the medical community (i.e., the hospital and its staff) conflict with the values of the individual patient, family, or larger non-medical community. Conflicts can also arise between health care providers, or among family members. Some argue for example, that the principles of autonomy and beneficence clash when patients refuse blood transfusions, considering them life-saving; and truth-telling was not emphasized to a large extent before the HIV era.
Read more about this topic: Medical Ethics
Famous quotes containing the words values in, values, medical and/or ethics:
“During our twenties...we act toward the new adulthood the way sociologists tell us new waves of immigrants acted on becoming Americans: we adopt the host culture’s values in an exaggerated and rigid fashion until we can rethink them and make them our own. Our idea of what adults are and what we’re supposed to be is composed of outdated childhood concepts brought forward.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“The values to which the conservative appeals are inevitably caricatured by the individuals designated to put them into practice.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)
“Unusual precocity in children, is usually the result of an unhealthy state of the brain; and, in such cases, medical men would now direct, that the wonderful child should be deprived of all books and study, and turned to play or work in the fresh air.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“If you take away ideology, you are left with a case by case ethics which in practise ends up as me first, me only, and in rampant greed.”
—Richard Nelson (b. 1950)