What is Medical Ethics ?

Doctors are expected to uphold the well-being of patients in general, not just their own patients. This means they have a duty to report a doctor who is abusing drugs or molesting patients, for example.

Medical ethics may have different standards from the law. The law is created by judges or legislators and may not share the values and reasoning of ethical physicians.

Physicians who disobey the Baby Doe laws (also referred to as "regulations") are rarely, if ever, prosecuted. In many cases, prosecutors are reluctant to take action against doctors who violate such laws out of respect for their clinical judgment.

With most malpractice cases, courts examine clinical standards of care and determine whether the defendant doctor has met them. In many cases, unethical conduct does not rise to the level of medical malpractice.

The gastroenterologist was clearly unethical in that he was not showing respect to the patient, but the patient did not file a malpractice lawsuit and instead filed a defamation lawsuit.

On the other hand, not getting a patient's informed consent for a procedure, another clearly ethical problem, is also an important element in a malpractice complaint.

Physicians who do not get informed consent can be liable for malpractice, even if the procedure meets all the standards of clinical care.

Medical malpractice cases require some evidence of harm, but this is not the standard for reporting physicians' conduct to medical licensing boards.

Medical boards can and do take action against many behaviors that are widely considered unethical even when no harm takes place.

The definition of unprofessional conduct promulgated by the Federation of State Medical Boards, the trade group for state boards, includes "patient abuse" and "dishonesty."

Medical ethics is the set of ethical rules that doctors follow. These ideas tell doctors how they should treat patients.

Withholding treatment to meet an organization's budget, or because of insurance policies;

Accepting money from pharmaceutical or device manufacturers;

Bioethicists often refer to the four basic principles of health care ethics when evaluating the merits and difficulties of medical procedures. Ideally, for a medical practice to be considered "ethical", it must respect all four of these principles: autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence. The use of reproductive technology raises questions in each of these areas.

Requires that a procedure does not harm the patient involved or others in society.  Infertility specialists operate under the assumption that they are doing no harm or at least minimizing harm by pursuing the greater good.  However, because