Medical Ethics in Healthcare

What you'll learn

Course overview

In many ways, healthcare is an art and a scientific endeavor. Professionals try to act in ways that promotes the best health of the patient. But it is not always clear what is best for the patient. Thus, at times choices have to be made that focus on what is best for the individual or their relatives, what medical records can be disclosed and what must be held in strictest confidentiality. Healthcare Ethics is the study of moral issues that concern healthcare professionals in medicine, nursing, law, sociology, philosophy, and theology. It deals with healthcare values, obligations, rights and needs. Medical ethics in particular trace its roots to the old Greek Hippocratic Oath, which required physicians above all to, do no harm.