Ethics refers to moral philosophy, or the study of values and the analysis of right and wrong. Today, being a doctor is one of the most challenging jobs there is . As a doctor, you are constantly thrown extremely complicated and ethical situations, like abortion, confidentiality, and informed consent.
One of the most debated ethical issues in the field of medicine is abortion. Abortion is the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death. In politics, there in constantly a debate surrounding privacy, and whether or not the government may regulate abortion. However, many churches, due to the separation of church and state, have posted official bans on abortion. Religious influences are closely tied to ethical opposition to abortion. Many people argue that abortion is morally wrong on the basis that a fetus is an innocent human being. Others reject this position by drawing a distinction between human being and human person, arguing that while the fetus is innocent and biologically human, it is not a person with a right to life. As a doctor, you are faced with the personal issue of whether or not you will decide to put medical abortions into practice. Situations like these require immense self analysis of values and ethics, upon which you will finally reach a conclusion.
Another key aspect in medical ethics is confidentiality. Confidentiality is commonly applied to conversations between doctors and patients. This concept is generally known as the patient-physician privilege. Legally, physicians aren’t allowed to reveal discussions with patients, even under oath in court. For example, if a patient had told you that, because he had murdered someone, had severe gunshot wounds all over his body, you would be extremely tempted to do, what you think, is the right thing. However the right thing may not necessarily be ethical, and the other way around. The right thing could mean telling the appropriate authorities what had just happened, but that would also mean sacrificing your job, but at the same time not your pride and dignity. There may be extenuating circumstances in certain situations like these, but most of the time it will be you that has to decide what the right thing to do really is.
Informed consent, the idea that an uninformed agent is at risk of mistakenly making a choice not reflective of his or her values, plays another big role in bioethical decision making. It does not, however, mean the process of obtaining consent, nor the specific legal requirements, which vary from place to place, for decision-making capacity. Patients can choose to make their own medical decisions, or can delegate decision-making authority to another party. If the patient is not capable of making decisions, laws all over the world designate different processes for obtaining informed consent, typically by having a spouse or other family member make decisions for the incapacitated patient.