engleski

Clinical ethics as intrinsic value of contemporary surgery

Background: Contemporary medicine also requires contemporary ethics. The surgical environment is becoming more complex. The scientific- technological progress simply imposes new categories of the surgeon-patient relationship. There is an emerging need for a redefinition of this relationship and allocation of responsibilities. Methods: Literature review. Results: In the past, there was an accepted opinion that sufficient medical knowledge and technical skills are enough guarantee that the final decision on what is medically indicated would be accurate. However, a clinical evaluation always includes in itself a set of values or norms outside the frame of medical- technical values. Namely, each medical, especially surgical decision includes in itself the ethical component, as well as the medical- technical component. Conclusions: Exactly clinical ethics offers an adequate frame for making surgical decisions ethically accurate. Especially today, the question: “Is surgery an art or a technology? Is it a humanistic enterprise with a scientific-technical component, or a scientific-technical enterprise with a humanistic component?” becomes more prominent. Surgery which at the same time attempts to be honorable, balanced, accessible and unbiassed must constantly reflect on its ethical principles: beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and autonomy.

ethics ; clinical, principle-based ethics, surgery

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