Medical ethics

[8][9] As this field continues to develop and change throughout history, the focus remains on fair, balanced, and moral thinking across all cultural and religious backgrounds around the world.

In the medieval and early modern period, the field is indebted to Islamic scholarship such as Ishaq ibn Ali al-Ruhawi (who wrote the Conduct of a Physician, the first book dedicated to medical ethics), Avicenna's Canon of Medicine and Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi (known as Rhazes in the West), Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides, Roman Catholic scholastic thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, and the case-oriented analysis (casuistry) of Catholic moral theology.

[23] While the secularized field borrowed largely from Catholic medical ethics, in the 20th century a distinctively liberal Protestant approach was articulated by thinkers such as Joseph Fletcher.

For example, since the first discovery of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China,[26] and subsequent global spread by mid-2020, calls for the adoption of open science principles dominated research communities.

[29] However, open science also allowed for the rapid implementation of life-saving public interventions like wearing masks and social distancing, the rapid development of multiple vaccines and monoclonal antibodies that have significantly lowered transmission and death rates, and increased public awareness about the severity of the pandemic as well as explanation of daily protective actions against COVID-19 infection, like hand washing.

Many consider that should be the main or primary consideration (hence primum): that it is more important not to harm your patient, than to do them good, which is part of the Hippocratic oath that doctors take.

The Council of Europe adopted the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (1997) to create a uniform code of medical ethics for its 47 member-states.

[55] The concept of normality, that there is a human physiological standard contrasting with conditions of illness, abnormality and pain, leads to assumptions and bias that negatively affects health care practice.

Healthcare professionals who place beneficence below other principles like non-maleficence may decide not to help a patient more than a limited amount if they feel they have met the standard of care and are not morally obligated to provide additional services.

In general, Western medicine defers to the wishes of a mentally competent patient to make their own decisions, even in cases where the medical team believes that they are not acting in their own best interests.

Organ donations can sometimes pose interesting scenarios, in which a patient is classified as a non-heart beating donor (NHBD), where life support fails to restore the heartbeat and is now considered futile but brain death has not occurred.

For example, in the state of Louisiana, giving advice or supplying the means to end a person's life is considered a criminal act and can be charged as a felony.

[40] With the rapid unification of healthcare, business practices, computer science and e-commerce to create these online diagnostic websites, efforts to maintain health care system's ethical confidentiality standard need to keep up as well.

[41] Looking forward, strong governance and accountability mechanisms will need to be considered with respect to digital health ecosystems, including potential metaverse healthcare platforms, to ensure the highest ethical standards are upheld relating to medical confidentiality and patient data.

[84] Other organizations, such as the Medical Protection Society and a number of university departments, are often consulted by British doctors regarding issues relating to ethics.

These bodies are composed primarily of healthcare professionals, but may also include philosophers, lay people, and clergy – indeed, in many parts of the world their presence is considered mandatory in order to provide balance.

Members should include a person with knowledge and experience in professional care, counseling or treatment of humans; a minister of religion or equivalent, e.g. Aboriginal elder; a layman; a laywoman; a lawyer and, in the case of a hospital-based ethics committee, a nurse.

Some cultures have spiritual or magical theories about the origins and cause of disease, for example, and reconciling these beliefs with the tenets of Western medicine can be very difficult.

[13] Such factors – such as poverty, environment and education – are said to be out of national or individual control and so this commitment is by default a social and communal responsibility placed on global communities that are able to aid others in need.

[88] Examples of this could include the relationships being viewed between aid workers, style of dress, or the lack of education regarding local culture and customs.

[89] Humanitarian practices in areas lacking optimum care can also pause other interesting and difficult ethical dilemmas in terms of beneficence and non-maleficence.

[90] The issues with providing healthcare to communities in need may sometimes be religious or cultural backgrounds keeping people from performing certain procedures or taking certain drugs.

Women's rights, informed consent and education about health become controversial, as some treatments needed are against societal law, while some cultural traditions involve procedures against humanitarian efforts.

[91] Some people believe this to be true and think that cultural change is needed in order for developing societies to cope and dodge the negative effects of drugs, food and conventional modes of transportation available to them.

[91] Buddhist ethics and medicine are based on religious teachings of compassion and understanding[92] of suffering and cause and effect and the idea that there is no beginning or end to life, but that instead there are only rebirths in an endless cycle.

[10] Passing and coming of the seasons, life, birth and death are perceived as a cyclic and perpetual occurrences that are believed to be regulated by the principles of yin and yang.

[10] Furthermore, some Chinese people may be inclined to continue futile treatment in order to extend life and allow for fulfillment of the practice of benevolence and humanity.

[10] In contrast, patients with strong Daoist beliefs may see death as an obstacle and dying as a reunion with nature that should be accepted, and are therefore less likely to ask for treatment of an irreversible condition.

[93] Because many believe it is faith and a supreme deity that hold the cure to illness, it is common that the physician is viewed merely as help or intermediary player during the process of healing or medical care.

[100] A growing movement among physicians is attempting to diminish the influence of pharmaceutical industry marketing upon medical practice, as evidenced by Stanford University's ban on drug company-sponsored lunches and gifts.