MEDICAL ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT
S.ARAVINDAN
LECTURER,
THE CENTRAL LAW COLLEGE,
SALEM.
INTRODUCTION
Medicine and law have always been related to each other. Bonds that united them in ancient days were religion and superstitions. Written records of law medicine date back to 3-4 thousand years B.C. in Egypt, Babylon, Indian and China. The code of king of Babylon (about 2200 B.C.) is the oldest known media-legal code.
Father of Modern medicine, Hippo crates (460-377 B.C.) was born and practiced in Greece. His contribution to medical ethics is by far the greatest. Around the banging of the Christian are various eugenic and public health provisions laid down in the Justinian code regulated the practice of medicine and surgery.
“Ethics” stands for system of moral values or code of conduct relating to morals in human beings. Morals are mainly derived from religious practices and are not open to arguments or logic. Ethics on the other hand are intellectually derived by a particular profession (Medicine, law etc) for its specific needs and may / can be changed or modified as per needs of the society or community.
CODE OF ETHICS
“Code of Ethics” must be in conformity with the “Laws of the land”, retaining the moral guidelines and is not contrary to the accepted morals of the society. Non-adherence to ethical standard is not an offence legally. Disobedience and violation of code ethics is considered unethical from the moral point of view.
The Central and State governments have enacted laws in relation to medical practice but these do not cover the moral values that are left to the conscience of the medical practitioners to enjoy good reputation amongst them selves.
CODES OF MEDICAL ETHICS
Charkas oath was the guiding principle of medical ethics in olden days. According to this, the teacher would instruct his disciples in the presence of sacred fire, Brahmans and Physician.
The present code of medical ethics is the Hippocratic oath, which has been...