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Medical Code of Ethics is a document that establishes the ethical rules of behaviour of all healthcare professionals, such as registered medical practitioners, physicians, dental practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, defining the priorities of their professional work, showing the principles in the relations with patients, other physicians and the rest of community.
Medical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. [1] Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. [2]
In most systems, healthcare providers have a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure that a patient's consent is informed. This principle applies more broadly than healthcare intervention, for example to conduct research, to disclose a person's medical information, or to participate in high risk sporting and recreational activities.
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: δέον, 'obligation, duty' + λόγος, 'study') is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, rather than based on the consequences of the action. [1]
Particularly controversial was the work of Harvard neurosurgeon Vernon Mark and psychiatrist Frank Ervin, who wrote a book, Violence and the Brain, in 1970. [1] The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1977 endorsed the continued limited use of psychosurgical procedures.
For example, a concern to promote beneficence may be expressed in traditional medical ethics by the exercise of paternalism, where the health professional makes a decision based upon a perspective of acting in the patient's best interests. However, it is argued by some that this approach acts against person-centred values found in nursing ethics.
Medical ethics has its roots in the writings of Hippocrates, and the practice of medicine was often used as an example in ethical discussions by Plato and Aristotle. [5] As a systematic field, however, it is a large and relatively new area of study in ethics.
Virtue ethics is a form of ethical theory which emphasizes the character of an agent, rather than specific acts; many of its proponents have criticised Kant's deontological approach to ethics. Elizabeth Anscombe criticised modern ethical theories, including Kantian ethics, for their obsession with law and obligation. [ 86 ]