Codes of ethics provide guidelines, but each human being must search inside to determine the ethical course of life, both professionally and personally. The Dadaist poet Hugo Ball once said:
Everywhere, the ethical predicament of our time imposes itself with an urgency that suggests that even the question ‘Have we anything to eat?’ will be answered not in material but in ethical terms.
The medical field has not yet reached that plateau, but ethical decisions have become an integral part of the everyday practice of medicine. In the end, the most difficult decisions come down to:
What do you as a human being believe is ethical?
Are you willing to act on that?
Ultimately, the answers to these questions can be guided by what the Hippocratic Oath has urged for all these centuries—putting what is best for the patient first in all ethical considerations.
