Ethical Guidelines in \"Do Ethical

Ethical Guidelines

In "Do Ethical Guidelines Give Guidance? A Critical Examination of Eight Ethics Regulations," Eriksson, Hoglund, & Gelgesson (2008) advocate a reexamination of the role ethical guidelines play in medicine. The authors identify several core problems with ethical guidelines within the biomedical industries. Those problems fall under three main categories: the problem of interpretation; the problem of multiplicity; and the problem of legalization. Eriksson et al. (2008) reviewed the ethical guidelines of five major regulating bodies: the UNESCO Bioethics and Human Rights statements; the Swedish Medical Association; the International Council of Nurses; the European Society for Human Genetics; and the Pontifical Academy for Life. Not only do the ethical guidelines of these five major institutions reveal internal inconsistencies. In practice, doctors, nurses, and researchers find themselves working within the legal and ethical frameworks of more than one of these governing institutions. Thus, conflicts between the ethical guidelines are unavoidable. The ethical guidelines of these major biomedical groups may on the surface appear to be consistent with one another, but a closer examination reveals flaws.

Although Eriksson et al. (2008) point out the problem with multiplicity, nurses need greater specificity in their ethical guidelines. The authors do note that ambiguity plagues ethical guidelines and prevents their effectiveness with regards to informing practice. If nursing practice is to follow ethical guidelines, then some sort of clearly defined set of rules must be established within an organization. As a nurse, I would advocate a reworking of ethical guidelines so that nurses and patients alike have little difficulty deciphering the morally correct modes of action in any given situation. The problem with multiplicity is of course that nurses are working under the umbrella of many different governing bodies at the same time. For example, the health care institution may have its own set of ethical guidelines that are distinct from and possibly in conflict with the guidelines established by the appropriate professional organization. Complicating matters further is the fact raised by Eriksson et al. (2008) that when doctors, psychiatrists, and other health care workers operate as a team the guidelines established by their individual professional organizations may clash.

Thus, greater multiplicity is not the solution. Greater clarity and specificity trump multiplicity in terms of what the biomedical industries need in order to ensure ethical behaviors within their organizations. If the primary goal of ethical guidelines is to inform ethical behavior, then that goal must in fact be clearly stated at the onset of the guidelines. Likewise, if ethical guidelines form the foundation for legislation, then the law must also point to the philosophical or ideological foundations upon which the regulations are founded.