Siena College Taytay CHAPTER III:

College of Nursing BASIC PRINCIPLE OF HEALTH CARE ETHICS

Applied Ethics is “the philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in
private and public life that are matters of moral judgment".

 Universal Principles of Biomedical Ethics

A. Autonomy /gk autos-self; nomos-governance/
Form of personal liberty wherein the individual is free to choose and implement one’s own
decisions, free from deceit, duress, constraint or coercion.
3 Basic Elements involved in the process:
o Ability to decide
o The power to Act upon your decisions
o Respect for the individual autonomy of others
B. Veracity /L veritas-truth/
The habitual pursuit and of adherence to truth.

C. Beneficence /L benific-well/
Suggests acts of mercy and charity. See Hippocratic Oath p45 as stated that “The nurses primary
commitment is to the welfare, safety of the client.”

D. Nonmaleficence:
Beneficence: The health care professionals ought to prevent and remove evil or harm and
promote good.
Nonmaleficence: Ought not to inflict harm.

E. Confidentiality: Ensuring that information is accessible only to those authorized to have access.
The following are excerpts and restated from the American Patients Bill of Rights:
5. The patients have the right to every consideration of his privacy in his medical care program.
6. The patient has the right to confidentiality to all his medical records.

F. Justice:
Distributive Justice in health care: as one struggles in distribution of scarce available resources.
Methods for distribution of goods and services in our society provide measure in due share:
To each… an equal share (1); according to need (2); according to effort (3); according to
contribution (4); according to merit (5); according to ability to pay (6).

G. Role Fidelity /F fidélité-faithful/: “strict conformity to truth or fact”

Whatever the assigned role the ethics of health care requires the practitioner it should be
practice faithfully within the constraints of the role.
Most often areas of acceptable practice are contained and prescribed by the scope of practice
of the state legislation that enables that profession’s practice. (See Nursing Act of 2002)

Edge R. and Groves J. R. (1999) Ethics of Health Care: A guide for Clinical Practice. C & E Publishing Inc.
San Juan Metro Manila. 2nd Edition. Pp.39-51.