Evidence based medical ethics: A critical evaluation

Abstract

Education in the medical colleges in some parts of the world and treatment of the patients in most parts of the world is leaning towards evidence based practices and medical ethics are no exception to this trend. The ethical values of the society are changing since the days of Hippocrates when the moral values were controlling the profession and earning of money by medical professionals. Following these values sometimes lead to lot of dilemmas in the medical profession. Due to increasing investments in the medical establishments and emergence of corporate hospitals aims and visions of healthcare providers are changing and ethical dilemmas are cropping up while treating the patients. Evidence based ethics are definitely a patient centered approach where individual cases can be treated depending upon the available evidence and it will be easy to solve the ethical dilemmas in a way where the interest of patients as well as health care providers are not laid up. It is better to know the good points of any emerging field but simultaneously it is our duty to know the limitations of the same.