Medical ethics and medical practice: a social science view.

Medical ethics and medical practice: a social science view.

This paper argues that two characteristics of social life impinge importantly upon medical attempts to maintain high ethical standards. The first is the tension between the role of ethics in protecting the patient and maintaining the solidarity of the profession. The second derives from the observation that the foundations of contemporary medical ethics were laid at a time of one-to-one doctor-...

Imagination, literature, medical ethics and medical practice.

Without imagination-without an actively cultivated imagination-not only do health care workers themselves suffer, but so too do their patients, argues Dr Anne Scott in this issue of the journal.' 2 Why? Because only by being able to imagine what it is like to be the other person, the patient, only by being able to enter imaginatively into the world of the patient, is the health care professiona...

Handbook of medical ethics. Medical ethics--a social responsibility.

The above approaches certainly have their place but also have their limitations. The repeated invocation of archival material tends to create an impression that ethical edicts are merely of historical significance and are irrelevant today. Some of the historical texts on medical ethics are based on morality, at times even bordering on the spiritual or the religious. This could be a hindrance to...

Rethinking medical ethics: a view from below.

In this paper, we argue that lack of access to the fruits of modern medicine and the science that informs it is an important and neglected topic within bioethics and medical ethics. This is especially clear to those working in what are now termed 'resource-poor settings'- to those working, in plain language, among populations living in dire poverty. We draw on our experience with infectious dis...

Buddhism and Medical Ethics: Principles and Practice