Clinical Ethics and Professionalism

The act of confronting problems that are too large for the patients, helping them navigate their way through health, wellness, sickness, and dying, and trying to find a balance among conflicting values, beliefs, ethics, and morals can complicate the doctor–patient relationship. The doctor–patient relationship is complex and is built upon trust. That trust can be affected by many different factors, as discussed in Chap. 8. What happens when the ethical principles that create and strengthen the doctor–patient relationship conflict? In this chapter, we address many of the ethical principles that create a foundation for this relationship. Some of the principles that we explore include beneficence, acting in a patient’s best interests, and doing no harm. Balancing these principles with a patient’s right to make autonomous decisions to guide their own medical care, especially when a patient refuses a recommended treatment, can be difficult.