Anaesthesia Waste Gases and Bioethics: Balancing Patient Care, Environmental Responsibility, and Occupational Safety.

IF 0.9 3区哲学 Q3 ETHICS

Developing World Bioethics Pub Date : 2025-06-15 DOI:10.1111/dewb.12489

Shibu Sasidharan, Harpreet Dhillon

{"title":"Anaesthesia Waste Gases and Bioethics: Balancing Patient Care, Environmental Responsibility, and Occupational Safety.","authors":"Shibu Sasidharan, Harpreet Dhillon","doi":"10.1111/dewb.12489","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Anaesthesia waste gases (AWGs) represent a significant yet often overlooked contributor to healthcare's environmental footprint, with implications extending beyond ecological concerns to encompass occupational hazards and complex ethical considerations. This article examines the intersection of AWGs and bioethics through the framework of environmental stewardship, occupational health principles, patient-centered care, and distributive justice. Contemporary volatile anaesthetics possess global warming potentials thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide, while implicated occupational exposures raise concerns about reproductive health and neurological function among healthcare workers. The bioethical paradigms of principalism-encompassing nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy, and justice-and environmental ethics provide structured approaches to addressing these multifaceted challenges. This review synthesizes current evidence regarding AWGs' environmental and occupational impacts, evaluates emerging mitigation strategies, and proposes an integrated ethical framework to guide clinical practice, institutional policy, and professional standards in anaesthesiology.</p>","PeriodicalId":50590,"journal":{"name":"Developing World Bioethics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Developing World Bioethics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12489","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Anaesthesia waste gases (AWGs) represent a significant yet often overlooked contributor to healthcare's environmental footprint, with implications extending beyond ecological concerns to encompass occupational hazards and complex ethical considerations. This article examines the intersection of AWGs and bioethics through the framework of environmental stewardship, occupational health principles, patient-centered care, and distributive justice. Contemporary volatile anaesthetics possess global warming potentials thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide, while implicated occupational exposures raise concerns about reproductive health and neurological function among healthcare workers. The bioethical paradigms of principalism-encompassing nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy, and justice-and environmental ethics provide structured approaches to addressing these multifaceted challenges. This review synthesizes current evidence regarding AWGs' environmental and occupational impacts, evaluates emerging mitigation strategies, and proposes an integrated ethical framework to guide clinical practice, institutional policy, and professional standards in anaesthesiology.

查看原文本刊更多论文

麻醉废气和生物伦理：平衡病人护理、环境责任和职业安全。

麻醉废气（awg）是医疗保健环境足迹的重要贡献者，但往往被忽视，其影响超出了生态问题，包括职业危害和复杂的道德考虑。本文通过环境管理、职业健康原则、以患者为中心的护理和分配正义的框架，探讨了AWGs和生物伦理学的交集。当代挥发性麻醉剂具有比二氧化碳大数千倍的全球变暖潜能值，而涉及的职业暴露引起了对卫生保健工作者生殖健康和神经功能的关注。原则主义的生物伦理范式——包括无害、仁慈、自治和正义——以及环境伦理为解决这些多方面的挑战提供了结构化的方法。本综述综合了AWGs对环境和职业影响的现有证据，评估了新兴的缓解策略，并提出了一个综合的道德框架，以指导临床实践、机构政策和麻醉学专业标准。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Developing World Bioethics 医学-医学：伦理

CiteScore

4.50

自引率

4.50%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Developing World Bioethics provides long needed case studies, teaching materials, news in brief, and legal backgrounds to bioethics scholars and students in developing and developed countries alike. This companion journal to Bioethics also features high-quality peer reviewed original articles. It is edited by well-known bioethicists who are working in developing countries, yet it will also be open to contributions and commentary from developed countries'' authors. Developing World Bioethics is the only journal in the field dedicated exclusively to developing countries'' bioethics issues. The journal is an essential resource for all those concerned about bioethical issues in the developing world. Members of Ethics Committees in developing countries will highly value a special section dedicated to their work.