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Overview

What’s New in…. Medical Ethics

Mark Daniels describes the debates, the dilemmas and the philosophers who wrestle with them.

Medical ethics may have originated with the duties of the doctor laid down by Hippocrates in his famous oath. The relationship between doctor and patient was paternalistic, with the knowing doctor making choices in the interest of the ignorant patient. The oath, sworn by every doctor, remained remarkably unchanged for centuries, though it has been updated in recent decades (see box).

The Nuremburg trials after the Second World War threw medical ethics into the spotlight. How could trained doctors such as Josef Mengele do such terrible things in the concentration camps? What should be done with the data gathered during his horrific experiments? Should it be used in the benefit of humanity? Or burned out of respect for the dead and a desire to keep medicine untainted?

The Holocaust had a significant effect on the development of medical ethics.

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