Ethics In Medical Ethics

Medicine and the practice of medicine has been in use for thousands of years. It incorporates different technologies for the purpose of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease in order to restore or maintain health. But what guides physicians to make life and death or difficult decisions? Most would argue that physicians are guided by the principles of medical ethics.

Medical ethics are a set of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine. The four values of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice are commonly considered to be the fundamentals within medical ethics. Medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings, and while these values do not give the answers as

The principle of beneficence as defined by the Handbook for Health Care Ethics Committees (2007) is “promoting the patient’s best interest and protecting the patient from harm” (p. 15), or in other words a moral obligation to act for the patient’s benefit. Although the physician may believe that it is in the patient’s best interest and a “benefit” to treat the internal bleeding, but in reality he would just be prolonging the inevitable, thus causing the patient prolonged agony and suffering. When the patient committed to stopping of treatments and a DNR he had come to terms with his illness and had accepted the fact that he was dying, therefore to treat the internal bleeding would provide no direct benefit. It does not cure the underlying disease, the patient will still be dying from pancreatic cancer even if the internal bleeding is resolved. The focus of treatment at this point should not be focused on extending live but rather on comfort for the remainder of what life is

Non-maleficence defined by the Handbook for Health Care Ethics Committees (2007) is “avoiding actions likely to cause the patient harm” (p.15) and this “principle grounds obligation to avoid the intentional infliction of harm or suffering, recognizing that conceptions of harm, as of good, are inextricably tied to individual values and interests” (pp. 16-17). At this stage of the patient’s condition, interventions to correct the internal bleeding would be considered a medical futile treatment- it is not going to help the patient, or change the underlying disease, it would just be prolonging life for the sake of it and probably make the patient very uncomfortable in the long run. To use medical interventions that may shortly prolong the patient’s life but worsen the quality of the patient’s life is not in the best interest or benefit for the