The code of ethics as stated by the American Medical Association is interesting because it gives a look into the way medical professionals are supposed to practice as well as the structuring and regulation in the medical field. The main parts of the code detail that medical professionals are to practice in a way that they keep the patient informed and do their best to fulfill the patients wishes in terms of treatment. However, doctors must also make difficult decisions about the greater good when it comes to things such as who receives an organ transplant. Something that stood out to me though was the fact that the AMA is self regulatory and is allowed to set its own standards and reprimand doctors that do not meet them. For the most part, I agree with this code of ethics and feel that it is an effective set of rules, but that part about them being self regulated raises some questions.
I personally feel that we rely so much on modern medicine that a field this important should be at least partially regulated by an outside source. This isn't to say that the medical field has some plot to extract every last penny from our pockets, but some regulation other than that of the field itself could be a failsafe if there was corruption in the field. Overall though, their code is based on doing their job effectively and putting patients and public health first which is hard to disagree with.
-Alex Wallace
"Code of Medical Ethica," AMA, 24 sept. 2016, www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics.page
No comments:
Post a Comment