Medical Ethics

History of ethics represents a search for basic principle, which would enable a distinction between moral and immoral, good and bad, right and wrong. The main problem lies in motives, methods and consequences of human conduct. The integrity of medical profession puts emphasis on life-long study and practice according to the professional competence, and last but not least on ethical principles and rules of medical ethics.
Medical ethics, as a part of bioethics, is currently taking on a huge importance in everyday clinical practice and must face many serious ethical issues regarding the whole system of health care. On general level the decision-making in medical practice is quite easy, based on the requirement to always act in the patient's best interest. However, it is often difficult to know exactly what is best for the patient, in a certain situation, for this particular patient. Also with each progress in medicine and its globalization, the more aspects of human lives are being affected. Biomedical research, and the new treatment and diagnostic methods it provides are viewed differently in each country, therefore various cultural, religious, social and legal aspects must be considered in their assessment, as well as the basic principles of medical ethics. Worldwide effort on unifying ethical regulations on certain aspects of health care led to the establishment of many legally recognized documents the doctors must be familiar with. Teaching ethics to students of medical school aims to educate the future doctors towards ethical decision-making, behaviour and professional conduct according to the basic principles of medical ethics.
This textbook provides the basic information on medical ethics for students of medical faculties and serves as a practical introduction to the most common ethical problems of health care provision for their future professional practise.

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