Page 7 - Professional Boundaries And Moral Obligation
P. 7
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Introduction
◦ Responsibility is moral when the relevant action is one that breaches or upholds
general moral norms, such as preventing harm or promoting the welfare of others.
◦ Since medicine is a practice for protecting and promoting the health of others, it is
inherently moral and therefore entails moral responsibilities.
◦ Example
◦ A doctor who gives penicillin to a patient with meningitis who then has a severe
anaphylactic reaction. The doctor is blameworthy if they did not consult available
notes on this patient's history or ask the patient and others who might have known of
the allergy. In causing harm, they have breached their duty of non-maleficence. The
doctor could have made those enquiries, and so should have known of the allergy.
The situation changes if the patient arrives unconscious and unidentified, such that
the doctor could not know of the allergy, in which case the doctor is not held
blameworthy.
