Why hippocrates introduced medical ethics

He also maintained that they should acquire the most perfect knowledge of every form of disease, and of the best mode of treatment. He considered calumny and illiberality disgraceful, and the disclosure of the errors of a contemporary highly culpable.

He was of opinion, that the morals of a medical practitioner should be excellent and unexceptionable, conjoined with gravity and humanity. He ought to be correct in every custom of life; and demean himself honourably and politely towards every rank in society, and thus will he promote the glory of his profession. To these precepts nature is the best guide. He is to retain in his recollection all remedies, their mode of preparation and application, and the use of all mechanical means which are employed for the cure of diseases.

This is the beginning, middle, and end of medicine. Let him be cautious in his prognosis, and predict only those events sanctioned by observation and experience. Another work in the Hippocratic corpus, On the Nature of Child , explains how to conduct one such procedure as well as other concoctions for supposedly terminating a pregnancy. Modern and past critics argue about the exact interpretation: the oath could be advocating for a general ban on abortion or a specific ban on the use of a pessaries in abortion.

Still, the oath does again seem to simplify a major debate as a corollary of non-maleficence. Their inclusion in the Hippocratic oath merits discussion and acknowledgement of how these issues apply to modern medicine. However, the Hippocratic oath in its historic version is certainly not the most ideal option for recital. Interestingly enough, the Hippocratic oath did indeed disappear from medical school ceremonies globally for centuries.

A greater public consciousness of medical ethics did however resurge after World War II. As the Nuremberg trials witnessed some of the first-ever institutions of international law in dealing with the former Axis powers, one of the most notorious trials included the trial of Nazi doctors stationed at concentration camps.

These doctors, including the notorious Josef Mengele, obviously dismissed any idea of patient consent and ruthlessly carried out medical experiments on prisoners and even sickly civilians in the name of eugenics. The Japanese Imperial Research program sought to develop weapons of biological warfare with agents like cholera and plague with over , Chinese killed in the process. All these advances are not to say that the world magically inherited a universally-abided code of medical ethics.

Even with the guise of increased ethical deliberation in medicine, the U. Aside from that, the Nuremberg trials really only focused on the vices of the Axis side with minimal accountability for war crimes committed by the Allied forces. The atomic bombs most certainly had a devastating effect on the communal health of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for generations afterwards due to the radiation exposure. The discovery and mass production of penicillin was vital to World War II efforts.

We cannot oversimplify the matter and conclude that wartime medical research is unethical. However, an increased focus on using medical research to gain advantages in combat can facilitate immoral acts, as has been witnessed in the past. World War II highlighted a peak for medical immorality, which justifiably coincided with an overall global trust in medicine, especially for the American public. The trend of specialization in medicine in the 50s also created an increased belief that medicine became a commercial profession.

Medicine seemed to become synonymous with taking advantage of a patient instead of the selfless care alluded to all those centuries ago in the Hippocratic oath. In response to this public distrust, the recitation of the Hippocratic oath resurfaced in American medical communities in the s. Louis Lasagna created a revision of the Hippocratic oath to emphasize the compassion of the patient.

Lasagna also deftly counters the commercial perspective of medicine. He depicts medicine not as some reductive feat that regards a patient as a medley of symptoms, but as a humanizing and empathetic experience. The Lasagna oath and its revisions seem to be the most predominant in current recitations from medical school students aside from individual oaths written by the schools themselves. Ayurvedic healers take the Charaka oath, named after the founder of ayurvedic medicine, Acharya Charak.

Charaka actually created his charter for medical ethics supposedly two centuries before Hippocrates ever created his oath. Where a patient does not have the mental ability to make an informed decision about whether information should be disclosed ie 'lacks capacity' , the GMC recommends that the clinician should:.

To facilitate an assessment of the patient's best interests, a clinician may need to share information with the family, friends or carers or anyone authorised to represent the patient, but this does not mean allowing free access to all information. Further guidance on mental capacity can be found in the separate Mental Capacity Act article.

It is not enough simply to obtain consent; that consent must be informed [ 8 ]. This raises questions about how much information should be provided and how this can best be presented in a way that the patient understands.

Informed consent applies to all medical interventions, including prescribing, and not just to procedures or operations.

The case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board raised the issue of patient autonomy and required doctors to pay due regard to individual patient priorities and tailor information to their needs [ 9 ]. However, a balance needs to be struck. If a list of every possible complication were to be recited it is unlikely that anyone would ever take any drug or submit to any procedure. An assessment needs to be made as to whether a person under the age of 16 has the capacity to make an informed decision about their care.

The courts have defined this as 'sufficient understanding and maturity to enable them to understand fully what is proposed'. This is known as Gillick competency. The issue of Gillick competency normally arises when the question of contraception in an underage girl is considered but may be relevant in any patient under 16 who requires care. The concept of 'first do no harm' has been enshrined in medical ethics for centuries but one must bear in mind that there is no intervention that does not have some slight risk.

Thus, although doing no harm should be one's first consideration, it must not prevent the clinician from avoiding all treatments which have some risk attached. Therapeutic nihilism is as unethical as negligent practice.

When providing care, consider the risks and benefits and, where significant, discuss these with the patient and record the discussion in the notes. The matter of risks and benefits must be judged on what was known at the time. The retrospective observation of an adverse incident does not necessarily mean that the decision was wrong.

Prog Clin Biol Res. Perm J. Indian J Psychiatry. Consent guidance ; General Medical Council. Choudry MI, Latif A, Hamilton L, et al ; Documenting the process of patient decision making: a review of the development of the law on consent.

Future Hosp J. Hello, I keep on passing gas every 5 minutes and they're really smelly. I can remember that I passed gas in the corridor where I work I'm a youth leader and the smell stayed for 2 hours like rotten Disclaimer: This article is for information only and should not be used for the diagnosis or treatment of medical conditions.

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In this article Introduction Principles of biomedical ethics Care of the patient as an individual Confidentiality Informed consent Primum non nocere Avoidance of pitfalls.

Medical Ethics In this article Introduction Principles of biomedical ethics Care of the patient as an individual Confidentiality Informed consent Primum non nocere Avoidance of pitfalls. Introduction Ethics involves the application of a moral code to the practice of medicine.