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Editorial

Hippocrates & Co.

by Rick Lewis

Medical ethics must be an eventful area in which to work. New technological breakthroughs and discoveries seem to appear almost hourly to present new dilemmas for doctors, nurses and researchers, as well as for the innumerable hospital ethics committees and government panels which advise them. The most colourful examples involve genetic experimentation on foetuses, cloning, test-tube babies, or other techniques undreamed of by Hippocrates. But working doctors are more likely to be worried by older, less glamourous dilemmas involving healthcare rationing (with new medical procedures or drugs costing a fortune, they can’t always be supplied to all who need them), euthanasia, or abortion.

Journalists often seem to have a rather hazy idea of medical ethics.

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