Surgical ethics

Abstract

Ethics and surgical intervention must go hand in hand. In any other arena of public or private life, if someone deliberately cuts another person, draws blood, causes pain, leaves scars and disrupts everyday activity, then the likely result will be a criminal charge. If the person dies as a result, the charge could be manslaughter or even murder. Of course, it will be correctly argued that the difference between the criminal and the surgeon is that the latter causes harm only incidentally. The surgeon’s intention is to cure or manage illness, and any bodily invasion that it incurs is only with the permission of the patient.