Medical Technology Ethics
Ethical problems associated with medical practices
and bioscience fall within the scope of medical
technology ethics. Ethics does not only deal with
patient-physician relationships from a moral point of
view, but extends to social issues related to health,
animal welfare, and environmental concerns.
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Types of Ethics
1. General Ethics – this type of ethics presents
truths about human acts, from which the
general principle of morality is deduced.
2. Special Ethics – this involves the application
of the principles of general ethics in different
departments of human activity both at the
individual and social levels.
3. Professional Ethics – branch of moral
science that deals with how and what a
professional should or should not do in the
workplace. A professional has obligations to
his profession, to the public, and to his or her
clients. Moral issues may sometimes arise in
the workplace. Knowledge on professional
ethics can guide staff in analyzing
assumptions and arriving at ethical
decisions.
Code of Professional Ethics
The objectives of professional ethics are as
follows:
 Perform duties and responsibilities
objectively in accordance with
relevant standards and guidelines
 Serve in a lawful and honest
manner, while maintaining high
standards of conduct and character
and not engage in acts discreditable
to the profession.
 Maintain privacy and confidentiality
of information obtained in the
course of duty unless disclosure is
required by a legal authority. Such
information should not be used for
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personal benefit or released to
inappropriate parties.
Maintain competency in respective
fields and agree to undertake only
those activities which one can
reasonably expect to complete with
professional competence.
Perform tasks with full confidence,
absolute reliability, and accuracy.
Be dedicated to the use of clinical
laboratory science to promote life
and for the benefit of mankind.
Board of Medical Technology
Code of Ethics
As I enter into the practice of Medical
Technology, I shall
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accept the responsibilities inherent to being
a professional;
uphold the law and shall not engage in illegal
work nor cooperate with anyone so
engaged;
avoid associating or being identified with any
enterprise of questionable character;
work and act in a strict spirit of fairness to
employer, clients, contractors, employees
and in a spirit of personal helpfulness and
fraternity toward other members of the
profession;
Use only honorable means of competition
for professional employment or services and
shall refrain form unfairly injuring, directly or
indirectly, the professional reputation,
projects or business of a fellow medical
technologist;
accept employment from more than one
employer only when there in no conflict of
interest;
perform professional work in a manner that
merits full confidence and trust carried
out with absolute reliability, accuracy,
fairness and honesty;
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review the professional work of other
medical technologists, when requested,
fairly and in confidence whether they are
subordinates or employees, authors of
proposals for grants or contracts, authors of
technical papers or other publications or
involved in litigation;
advance the profession by exchanging
general information and experience with
fellow medical technologists and other
professionals and by contributing to the
work of professional organizations;
restrict my praises, criticisms, views and
opinions within constructive limits and shall
not use the knowledge I know for selfish
ends; I shall treat any information I acquired
about individuals in the course of my work as
strictly confidential, and may be divulged
only to authorized persons or entities or with
consent of the individual when necessary;
report any infractions of these principles of
professional conduct to the authorities
responsible of enforcement of applicable
laws or regulations, or to the Ethics
Committee of the Philippine Association of
Medical Technologists as may be
appropriate.
To these principles, I hereby subscribe and
pledge to conduct myself at all times in a
manner befitting the dignity of my
profession.
and personal lives. Medical professionals
have to deal with daily ethical dilemma in
clinical settings because the community
relies on critical decisions made in time,
which sometimes have far-reaching
consequences.
Moral Principles in Medical Technology
Ethics
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Medical Ethics
This is a field of applied ethics that studies
moral values and judgements as they apply
to medicine. Medical ethics are a set of
norms, values, and principles that serve as
guidelines for medical practitioners such as
physicians, nurses, medical technologists
and other associated professionals in making
decisions in clinical settings. Medical ethics
can affect the well-being of patients and
even the medical practitioner’s professional
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Autonomy – this principle dictates
that the patient has the right to
refuse or choose their treatment.
Beneficence – this principle
indicates that a practitioner should
act in the best interest of the
patient.
Nonmaleficence – this principle
provides that evil or harm should
not be inflicted either on oneself or
on others.
Justice – this principle is concerned
with the distribution of scarce health
resources and the decision on who
gets what treatment in terms of
fairness and equality.
Respect for dignity – this principle
provides for all the necessary means
of care, high regard for the person or
the patient, and needed information
to make a relevant decision.
Truthfulness and Honesty – this is
simply the dedication of a person to
his job and is reflective of being
honest and concerned.
Stewardship – this principle refers to
the
expression
of
one’s
responsibility to nurture and
cultivate what has been entrusted to
him.
Values of a Medical Technologist
The values of an employee are important to
keep order within the workplace. A code of
conduct which defines the expected
behavior of an employee, is set within the
workplace. In a professional setting, values
and ethics serve as the foundation of an
organization.
Ethical School of thought
Virtue Ethics - is currently one of three major
approaches in normative ethics. It may,
initially, be identified as the one that
emphasizes the virtues, or moral character.
2.
Deontology - defined as an ethical theory
that the morality of an action should be
based on whether that action itself is right or
wrong under a series of rules, rather than
based on the consequences of the action.
Teleology - The explanation of phenomena
in terms of the purpose they serve rather
than of the cause by which they arise.
century denoting the branch of philosophy
that deals with ends or final causes.
Postmodernism - a late 20th-century
movement
characterized
by
broad
skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a
general suspicion of reason; and an acute
sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting
and maintaining political and economic
power
3.
4.
Human Existence of Ethics
Humans
are
born
with
many
undifferentiated potentials. They have the
innate capacity to acquire ethical beliefs, but
the value system that they develop is
dependent upon the cultural framework in
which they live. Also, they have an innate
capacity to become a truly ethical being and
to conform to some universal principles of
mutual cooperation and altruism.
Moral Issues and Ethical Considerations
1. Stem cells
5.
There is an ongoing debate about the
ethics of embryonic stem cell therapy
because the isolation of embryonic stem
cells requires the destruction of the
embryo which some people would
consider as living. Creating and killing
embryos for instrumental use is
seriously and morally wrong with this
view.
Euthanasia
Practice of euthanasia in the opponent
results in mercy killing even it is against
the will of the patient, supporters of
euthanasia believe in the right of
terminally ill person to avoid
excruciating pain and to have dignified
death.
Cloning
In the process of isolating the embryonic
stem cells, the embryo is sometimes
destroyed. Some have denied that there
is a moral difference between using
surplus embryos in in vitro fertilization
(IVF) and cloned embryos. In their
opinion, if killing is wrong, then it is
wrong regardless of the embryo’s origin.
Artificial Birth control
Pro life movements argues that the use
of artificial birth control is a deliberate
attempt to suppress the natural
outcome of a sexual act which is
procreation. Contraceptives oppose the
traditional church teachings wherein the
purpose of sexual intercourse within the
context of marriage is for procreation
and not for sexual pleasure and are
viewed as a form of abortion because it
kills future babies.
Organ Transplants and Blood donation.
Reasons for Donation and Ethical Issues
 Living Related Donors – such
individuals donate to family
members/friends in whom they
have an emotional investment.
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Paired Exchange – also known
as organ swap involving two
organ recipients who swap
willing donors.
Good Samaritan – or altruistic
donation is a gift of an organ or
blood to someone not known to
the donor.
Compensated Donation – the
donor receives money in
exchange of the donated organ.
Allocation of Donated Organs –
donated organs should be
allocated in a fair and unbiased
manner, depending on the need
of the patient and the closeness
of the match between the donor
and recipient.
Forced donation – individuals in
custody or detention are not in
the position to give free consent
to donate their organ. The
members of their immediate
family can decide on the organ
donation. Involuntary or forced
organ harvesting is illegal.
References:
Suba, S. et al. Introduction to Medical
technology with Science, Technology and
Society
Moraleta, N. The Medical technology
Profession and Philippine laws
Guorong, Y. Contemporary
Thought. 2012 vol 43,no 4,pp 27
Chinese
http://www.yourdictionary.com/deontolo
gy
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definiti
on/teleology
https://www.britannica.com/topic/postm
odernism-philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethicsvirtue/