INTRODUCTION TO BIOETHICS duties, and responsibilities of the sick

person and his/her relatives.

Ethics comes from the Greek word Ethicos

HEALTHCARE ETHICS – A domain in the
- A method of inquiry that helps people to practice of healthcare profession that sets the
understand the morality of human standards or guidelines relatives to studies,
behavior. inquiries and decisions on the part of healthcare
- Practices or Beliefs of a certain group. professionals in relation to the delivery of
- The expected standards of moral healthcare
behavior of a particular group as
SPECIFIC ETHICAL ISSUES
described in the group’s formal code of
professional ethics. - Euthanasia
Ethics VS Moral - Suicide
Ethics: - Abortion
- Guiding principles of conduct of an
individual or group
- Influenced by profession, field, PROFESSIONAL ETHICS – The personal and
organization corporate rules that govern behavior within the
- Related to professional work context of a particular profession
- Uniform compared to morals
- Refers to rules provided by an external
source CHARACTERISTICS OF NURSING
JUDGEMENT IN CARING A PATIENT
Moral:
1. Some of this judgement is about having
- Principles on one’s judgement of right
a strong sense of what is right or wrong
and wrong based
2. Having a strong sense of what should
- Influenced by society, culture, and
be doing and shouldn’t be doing as
religion
nurses
- Not related to professional work
3. Having a strong sense of what our
- Vary according to different cultures and
prorates ought to be
religions
- Refers to an individual’s own principles
regarding right and wrong
Nurses frequently have to make difficult
BIOETHCIS decisions for which there is not always a quick,
easy, or correct answers, nevertheless, nurses
- Ethos, philosophical discipline that deals
still have to be able to explain and account for
with morality of human conduct
these of decisions and actions
- Concerned with the ethics and
philosophical implications of certain HUMAN ACTS
biological and medical procedures,
technologies, and treatments such as: - Actions that proceed from the deliberate
Organ Transplants, Genetic free will of man
Engineering, and care of the terminally - When a man is responsible. Know what
ill he is doing and will to do it
- Is interested on the ends and purposes - Full knowledge and consent
of life sciences, healthcare, meaning
and implications of distributive justice,
meaning of life, death, pain, sufferings,
THREE-FOLD ELEMENTS OF HUMAN ACTS

1. Knowledge
2. Freedom
3. Voluntariness

ACTS OF MAN

- Actions beyond one’s consciousness

- Not dependent on the intellect and the
will
- Essential Qualities of acts of man
- done without knowledge
- Without consent
- Involuntary

“Actions that happens within the body are not

human acts because they occur without the
control of the will and consciousness of the
human mind” (Babor, 2006)

 Acts of man do not make humans

responsible for their actions
 It must be made clear the humans are
responsible only for their action if they
perform the act through:
 Knowledge
 Freedom, and
 Voluntariness

Human Acts

1. The act must be deliberate

2. The act must be free
3. The act must be voluntary

Acts of Human

1. They are done in deliberately

2. The acts are not done freely
3. The acts are done involuntarily