Newcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom

Medical Ethics and Law

Master's
Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: medicine, health care
Qualification: MA
Kind of studies: full-time studies, part-time studies
Master of Arts (MA)
This course provides an opportunity to study the ethical and legal issues that arise in health care and related fields. The course explores the moral problems that those working in these fields face in the course of their work, provides the background for recognising issues that may raise legal liability in these contexts, and reflects the legal and social context in which health care practice is situated.
University website: www.keele.ac.uk
Ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from Ancient Greek ἠθικός (ethikos), from ἦθος (ethos), meaning 'habit, custom'. The branch of philosophy axiology comprises the sub-branches of ethics and aesthetics, each concerned with values.
Law
Law is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. Law is a system that regulates and ensures that individuals or a community adhere to the will of the state. State-enforced laws can be made by a collective legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes, by the executive through decrees and regulations, or established by judges through precedent, normally in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals can create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that may elect to accept alternative arbitration to the normal court process. The formation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people.
Medical Ethics
Medical ethics is a system of moral principles that apply values to the practice of clinical medicine and in scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Such tenets may allow doctors, care providers, and families to create a treatment plan and work towards the same common goal without any conflict. It is important to note that these four values are non-hierarchical, meaning no one principle routinely “trumps” another.
Ethics
The ethical decision is always the fearsome decision. When something matters enough that we are afraid of the consequences — afraid that even the honorable choice could result in harm or loss or sorrow — that’s when ethics are involved.
Henry W. Bloch, in The Importance of Ethics
Law
The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.
John Marshall Harlan, Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 559 (1896).
Law
As in elections, the law pretended universal rights, while securing the interests of powerful houses.
David Brin, Glory Season (1993), chapter 27.
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