Patient doctor relationship ethics, based on 4 principles

Patient doctor relationship ethics is an important topic in everything that happens between human birth and death. In particular, problems related to life may embarrass and distress doctors and patients.

However, it is difficult for anyone to come up with the answer easily. This is because each situation has various causes and circumstances. If there are any principles in patient doctor relationship ethics, you can easily judge the situation by applying those principles. So, does this principle exist in patient doctor relationship ethics?

Fortunately, there are such things. There are principles designed to make it easy to analyze patient doctor relationship ethics problems and draw conclusions. It is the’Principle of biomedical ethics’. It is a principle insisted in the book <4 Principles of Medicine and Ethics> by T.L. Beauchamp and J.F. Children, American medical ethicists in the 1970s, and is generally accepted in the discussion of patient doctor relationship ethics today.

These 4 principles are Principle of respect for autonomy, Principle of nonmaleficence, Principle of beneficence, and Principle of justice. A brief introduction to these principles follows.

Principle of respect for autonomy

This is the principle that everyone has the autonomy to decide what they do, and no one should be infringed upon that right as long as it does not harm others. Informed Consent is a very important part of ensuring patient autonomy. According to the principle of respect for autonomy, doctors are obligated to disclose information, obtain consent, trust, and protect privacy.

Principle of nonmaleficence

The principle is that doctors will not use medicine for things that cause harm. In a broad sense, harm refers to damage to honor, property, personal life, freedom, etc., but in a narrower sense, it refers to damage to physical and psychological interests. It can be further embodied as not killing, not inflicting pain, not maiming, not taking goods, etc. as required by doctors.

Principle of beneficence

It is that doctors use medicine to do good. Paternalism is involved. While the Principle of nonmaleficence has the negative meaning of not doing something, the Principle of beneficence has the positive meaning of doing something.

Principle of justice

The principle is that the distribution of all goods should be justified. This includes deciding how to allocate organs for transplantation. How to interpret the ethical problems we face in the medical field and how to make a decision, by substituting the situation with the above 4 principles, we can make an appropriate judgment by considering whether or not it is in line with the principles.

Of course, these 4 principles do not solve all patient doctor relationship ethics issues, but they can be used as a good tool to identify ethical issues in the clearest. Substituting this principle not only for medical problems but also for things that occur in our daily life can help us make good judgments, so applying this principle whenever we encounter difficult problems will help a lot.