ABSTRACT
Healthcare professionals require an ethical basis for their day-to-day work. There are four widely accepted general principles of medical ethics which go towards such a framework, namely autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence. This 'four-principle' model of moral principles central to biomedical ethics was pioneered by the ethicists Beauchamp and Childress. This approach has met with some criticism as being too simplistic, but of great appeal is that these prima facie principles offer flexibility, represent a neutral frame of reference applicable to patients from different cultures and religions and are independent of political doctrines. The profile of patient autonomy has also been raised as the media and the Internet have provided the public with greater access to information on medicine and health. Sometimes the risk of harm to others in the population needs to be taken into account, and the principle of non-maleficence may outweigh the patient's autonomy.
