Medical ethics from A to Z

Annotation: The aim of the text, which is intended primarily for students of medical and other health care disciplines, is to introduce the purely practical issues. Ethics has been an integral and inseparable part of these professions from ancient times to the present day. The roots of medical ethics in our culture and its history up to the present day are therefore thoroughly discussed. The aim is not to analyse the thinking of various philosophers and philosophical trends that could be applied to contemporary medical ethics; this area is only marginally approached. At the centre of medicine is the meeting of two people, which is and should continue to be the defining phenomenon of the whole philosophy of medicine and its morality. Medical (and medical ethics) must therefore continue to be based on clear principles; it is too fundamental a fact to be left entirely at the mercy of random fashionable philosophical currents. Attention is paid to the necessity of respecting the wholeness of man in all his interrelated dimensions and his dignity, the issue of conscience, pain and suffering, dying and death, the question of human rights and the rights of the sick. Against the background of these considerations, concrete examples of today's difficult issues in some areas of medicine are presented. All of this thinking is completely in line with the thinking and recommendations of the World Medical Association, which today works very closely with other organisations, in our context, especially the International Council of Nurses; and within this alliance, common ethical issues are at the forefront. Some documents and publications of the Council of Europe on the ethics of the helping professions are also mentioned in the text, which are also in line with the text of the publication. The aim is not only to acquire basic knowledge, but above all to increase sensitivity to ethical issues in everyday practice and to help in critical reflection of personal values and duties in relation to the patient. Content: Basic concepts (ethics, medical and health ethics, bioethics, ethical theories); The Hippocratic Oath and the Hippocratic tradition; Judeo-Christian tradition and medical ethics, Islam and medical ethics; Principles of modern medical ethics (bioethics): autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice; The intrinsic morality of medicine; Conscience; The wholeness of man; The dignity of man - man as a person; Pain and suffering; Human rights and the rights of the sick; On the relationship between ethics and law. This "theoretical background" is demonstrated with concrete examples (AIDS, transplantation, cloning, treatment options, etc.).