1.1 Healthcare ethics

Healthcare ethics is concerned with the set of principles and values applied to patient care, public health and medical research. It can be subdivided into:

• medical/clinical ethics – ethical issues and dilemmas in individuals in medical practice
• research ethics – protection of research participants, informed consent, etc.
• public health ethics – ethical issues and dilemmas at population level
• bioethics – the study of ethical issues brought about by advances in biology and medicine.

This module focuses on the first three branches of ethics.