Medical ethics and pandemic emergencies

Abstract

2018 is the 100th anniversary of an influenza epidemic that took the lives of between fifty and a hundred million people. Traditional medical ethics places the primary obligation of medical personnel on the care of individual patients. Yet in a time of pandemic emergency, the shear scope of demand for medical treatment may well make it impossible to meet both the public health needs of collective humanity and the collected needs of individual patients. Medical ethics must address this dilemma.