Primary care ethics are crucial to ensuring that patients receive high-quality and fair treatment. It’s a physician’s responsibility to understand healthcare ethics and how they affect their patients.
While ethics is a complex topic, there are several standards that you should be familiar with. Get started by exploring four essential need-to-knows about healthcare principles below.
1. Four States Require CME on Ethics
Currently, four states have CME requirements for ethics and professional behavior. If you practice in one of these states, you’ll need to follow these guidelines:
- Michigan: MDs must take at least one hour of medical ethics CME.
- Florida: DOs need to take one hour of CME on health professional principles.
- Nevada: MDs must take two hours of CME on ethics, addiction care and/or pain management per licensure cycle. DOs must take two hours of those credits in even years only.
- Texas: Medical professionals in Texas must attend two hours of CME on standards and professional responsibility.
While these states require practitioners to complete healthcare ethics CME, anyone can do the same.
Please see your state’s official medical board website to determine your exact CME requirements. This resource is intended to be a guide and may not be up to date.
2. Common Ethical Issues in Healthcare
As with any profession, situations may arise that have a significant ethical focus, especially in patient care. Some of the topics you may encounter in your practice or during CME trainings include:
- AI use
- Confidentiality and patient privacy
- Informed consent
- End-of-life care and planning
- Healthcare access
- Organ donation
- Health equity
- Surrogate decision makers
- Medical student involvement in care
Of course, there are many other topics under the category of “ethics,” including dementia care, stem cell harvesting and prenatal testing. Ethical concerns can also involve reporting colleagues’ unethical or incompetent behaviors.
3. American Medical Association (AMA) Principles of Medical Ethics
Given the wide variety of topics under the “healthcare ethics” umbrella, the AMA developed the “Principles of Medical Ethics.” Practitioners can use these as a baseline for ethical decision-making.
The AMA outlines a total of nine principles. Here’s a brief overview that summarizes what they cover:
- Compassion and respect for human rights
- Patient privacy
- Responsibility to the patient
- Adherence to the law
- Professionalism and honesty
- Dedication to continuing education
- Participation in public health-improving activities
- Choice of who to serve and where
- Support for access to medical care for all people, regardless of status, ethnicity, gender or religion
View the complete AMA Principles of Medical Ethics guide for a more in-depth explanation of these guidelines. Doctors should be familiar with them and understand their impact on patients.
4. Four Principles
The “Four Principles” are another perspective on healthcare ethics that you may encounter. You’ve likely heard of or learned about these during your schooling. Here’s a breakdown of the four principles and what they entail:
Beneficence
Beneficence refers to a physician’s responsibility to act in the patient’s best interest. That includes providing treatments while considering the person’s goals, background and preferences.
Non-maleficence
Non-maleficence incorporates one of the most well-known medical principles: “do no harm.” It is a physician’s job to think about how their actions (or lack thereof) impact patients.
In this case, “harm” doesn’t refer to general pain, but instead to unnecessary or undue harm.
Autonomy
Autonomy refers to respecting a patient’s control over their own body and the treatments provided. While you can educate them, it’s ultimately up to them to make healthcare decisions.
This principle also incorporates informed consent, where you tell the patient about the care plan and they decide if they want to proceed.
Justice
Justice revolves around treating all patients fairly and providing equitable care. Physicians should not deny or give lower-quality treatment to someone because of economic status, gender, ethnicity or religion.
With equitable care, practitioners should serve more severe cases first, even if a less pressing one arrives earlier. Doctors should also avoid giving special treatment to a patient because of personal connections.
Refresh Your Ethics Knowledge and Other Skills With CME
Whether you need a refresher on all things ethics or want to brush up on other skills to help you be a better physician, CME can help. With in-person, virtual and on-demand CME opportunities, it’s simpler than ever to find ones that fit your preferences.