Abstract
When clinicians face ethical challenges, they may refer to professional codes and ethical guidelines for support. Whether and how professional codes and ethical guidelines have the function or potential to give ethical orientation and support to clinical care will be the core question of this chapter. The analysis will be carried out on the basis of an overview of the framework of Civil Law – as one form of codification – with a focus on recent legislation in Switzerland, also referring to international codes and guidelines.
Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is one of the most dramatic interventions in clinical care. Its success is based on numerous preconditions, both technical and logistical. It does, however, trigger severe ethical and legal complications as the decision making must take place very fast and has long-lasting effects (Mentzelopoulos et al. 2018). Clinical staff, therefore, needs to rely on guidance for security and prevention of errors.
Several (inter)national guidelines of mostly medical content exist offering clinical information and algorithms for CPR, but little ethical support.
This book chapter describes the development of a resuscitation guideline for a Swiss University Hospital. Challenges and obstacles for ethical support during the development will be reported and discussed. It concludes by considering what significance existing normative documents, especially ethical guidelines, have in general and with regard to the chosen clinical focus of CPR. Concerning the newly introduced ethics policy on CPR, ‘points to consider’ should help institutions creating ethical support helping physicians and patients tackle ethical challenges in clinical everyday life.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the members of the USB Ethics Advisory Board for contributing to the Policy. Dr. Wiebke Paulsen, MA, has made valuable contributions to the algorithm. For their helpful support the authors thank Angelika Markaj, MSc, and Dr. Kristina Würth, lic. Phil.
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Wetterauer, C., Schürmann, J., Reiter-Theil, S. (2022). The Significance of Professional Codes and Ethical Guidelines in Difficult Clinical Situations. In: Laas, K., Davis, M., Hildt, E. (eds) Codes of Ethics and Ethical Guidelines. The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86201-5_6
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