The Ethics of Medical Practice

There has been a proliferation of the types of ‘medical practice’ that are available around the world. There is the science-based ‘Western medicine’, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine in India, the many native systems from Africa and Asia and the rapidly proliferating modes of ‘fringe medicine’ in Westernized countries. These alternative forms of medicine may have their own traditions, conventions and variably active codes of conduct but we are only concerned in this book with the ethics of the science-based medical practice, ‘Western medicine’.