ABSTRACT
After reading this chapter you should be able to:
discuss how absence of ethical principles can lead to human catastrophes and what can be learned from such catastrophes;
identify and discuss how aspects of professional code of conduct, law and ethics can prevent human catastrophes in healthcare;
use your understanding of the ethical issues within the Tuskegee and Nazi German experiments mentioned in this chapter to critically examine how health professionals could seriously undermine patients’ own value systems and erode their personal, cultural and religious rights to proper ethical standards in healthcare;
discuss the nurse's moral, ethical and legal obligation to ensure that the historical catastrophes referred to in this chapter are never repeated.
