Surgical Ethics: The Main Ethical Issues Faced by the Surgeon

The goal of this article is to describe surgical ethics and to outline the principal moral dilemmas that surgeons must resolve. Ethical behavior has always been deeply ingrained in surgical culture, but ethical deliberation has only recently become an important component of cardiac surgical practice. In our earlier review, we covered a range of issues including several related to informed consent, conflict of interest, professional self-regulation and innovation, among many others.Surgeons must have a moral compass in their armamentarium which guide their decisions and actions. Surgery is an ethical practice and therefore surgeons should display surgical competence and diligence in their academic and medical activities. Surgeons should be trustworthy from a moral and ethical standpoint and should be skilled in the science and art of surgery. Surgeons must act as ethical models for society, surgeons in training, and fellow colleagues in the place he/she works. A guide used for discussion in surgical ethics should be based on the four-box approach and principalism to clinical ethics. Proximity, surgery-rescue, aftermath, ordeal and presence are five categories of relationships and experience that are important.