Ethical and Social Issues in Medicine

Abstract

So rapidly has the field of health care ethics continued to grow that, when recently “googled,” the term produced 28.2 million hits. The challenge is to address the ethical and social issues in medicine in this very limited article space. It remains an impossible task to present more than a superficial discussion of these complex issues and the complicated cases in which they are to be found. Like good medicine, good ethics cannot be practiced by algorithm. The authors have opted to provide an operational guide to help clinicians sort through the ethical and social quandaries they must face on a daily basis. To that end, the authors have chosen to divide this chapter into the following sections: 1. A brief description of the biopsychosocial nature of ethics and how it differs from personal morality 2. A method for identifying and dealing with ethical issues 3. A discussion of the role of bioethicists and ethics committees 4. The professional fiduciary role of clinicians 5. Listings of some of the common key bioethical and legal terms (online access only) 6. A very brief discussion of the terms cited in the above listings (online access only) This reviews contains 4 tables, 8 references, 1 appendix, and 20 additional readings. Keywords: Ethical, social, right, wrong, good, bad, obligation, moral authority, critically reflective, and multiperspectival activity, Curiosity, Honesty, Patience, Open-mindedness