Kenny N P
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, USA.
J Can Dent Assoc. 1997 Oct;63(9):690-4.
Formal ethical reflection and analysis have become expected components of clinical decision making for all health professionals. The implicit acceptance of professional ethics as the sole determinant of "the right and the good" has been replaced by an expectation for more broadly-based understanding of ethical issues. Dentists, like physicians, must be clear about professional ethics and competent in interdisciplinary and interprofessional discussions of the right and good. Modern bioethics is providing approaches to these issues to help practitioners make ethical clinical decisions. These approaches may not be appropriate for dentistry, especially as practised in Canada. Clearly, there are fundamental questions concerning dentistry as a profession, patient-dentist interactions and dental health that must be addressed to form a basis for an ethic relevant to professional practice. The answers to these questions have profound implications for the initial and continuing education of Canadian dentists and for dentistry itself. Some possible starting points for a truly Canadian ethic for dentistry are suggested from a non-dentist, physician ethicist.
正式的伦理思考与分析已成为所有医疗专业人员临床决策的预期组成部分。将职业道德隐含地视为“对与善”的唯一决定因素，已被对更广泛理解伦理问题的期望所取代。与医生一样，牙医必须清楚职业道德，并能够胜任关于对与善的跨学科和跨专业讨论。现代生物伦理学正在为这些问题提供方法，以帮助从业者做出符合伦理的临床决策。这些方法可能不适用于牙科，尤其是在加拿大所施行的牙科领域。显然，关于牙科作为一门专业、医患互动以及牙齿健康等基本问题，必须加以探讨，以便为与专业实践相关的伦理奠定基础。这些问题的答案对加拿大牙医的初始教育和继续教育以及牙科本身都有着深远影响。一位非牙医的医生伦理学家提出了一些可能成为真正加拿大牙科伦理的起点。
