Medical ethics

Active vocabulary
Term Meaning
Professional competence Level of specialized knowledge and skills
Care Protecting and looking after someone
Confidential Secret, private
To be fit to practice in a suitable condition to work
Risk Possibility of something bad happening
prejudice Have a negative influence on
* GMC – General Medical Council

Ethics in healthcare
Healthcare ethics – principles that serve to guide clinicians (doctors, nurses, etc.) in providing medical
care. This is the combination of moral beliefs (a sense of right and wrong) with a sense of the provider’s
duty toward others.

It covers:

- how to treat patients;

- ethical behaviors or relationships with patients and colleagues;

- relationships with vendors (pharmaceutical companies), where doctors may be offered incentives to
prescribe medications;

- financial incentives to overtreat or undertreat patients.

The main duties of a doctor registered with the GMC include:

1) Make the care of your patient is your first concern.

2) Treat every patient politely and considerately.

3) Give patients information in a way they can understand.

4) Keep your professional knowledge and skills up to date.

5) Recognize the limits of your professional competence.

6) Be honest and trustworthy.

7) Respect and protect confidential information.

8) Make sure that your personal beliefs do not prejudice your patient’s care.

9) Act quickly to protect patients from risk if you have good reason to believe that your colleague may not
be fit to practice.

Task 1. Look at the pictures. All the pictures violate the corresponding duty of a doctor registered with the
GMC. Explain what wrong is going on at the given pictures and say how it should be done correctly. Which
of the duties were not mentioned?
Task 2. Which of the GMC guidelines is breached in each of these cases?

Task 3. Look at the given pictures. Imagine that you are a doctor and the patient is the person from the
picture. Make up a dialog with minimum 10 questions which you will ask him/her. Explain what point from
the GMC you have used in your dialog.