Abstract
Recently, the attitude and performance of the physician have been questioned and new codes of medical ethics have been introduced. Any ethics proposed for the future is a scenario reflecting the composer's selectivity. Envisaged ethics of truthful, non-paternalistic, responsible physician-patient interaction will have far-reaching implications for autopsy, euthanasia, abortion, suicide, genetic engineering, transplantation, clinical trials, status of the psychiatric patient, physician immunity and liability. Conflicts between personal and societal medical ethics may continue to be insoluble. A possible projection of the physician's ethics on that of the politician is discussed. A new medical ethics should encompass principles of different creeds and be supranational.
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This is based on a lecture delivered at the German-Israeli, Christian-Jewish Colloquium “Shared Responsibility for the Future” held by the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation, Jerusalem, March 15, 1981.
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De Vries, A. Reflections on a medical ethics for the future. Metamedicine 3, 115–120 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00882719
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00882719