Select clinical ethics terms and definitions
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Autonomy | A patient’s right to self-determination and to make personal medical decisions. |
| Justice | Similarly situated patients should be treated similarly. The distribution of resources should be fair and based on medical need and the likelihood of a “good” medical outcome. |
| Beneficence | Medical treatments should be provided to benefit a patient. |
| Nonmaleficence | The principle of “do no harm.” This pertains to the potential burdensomeness of medical treatments. A balance between beneficence and nonmaleficence should always be considered when providing medical treatments and care. |
| Decision-making capacity | A patient’s cognitive abilities to understand information and communicate medical decisions. |
| Implied consent | A situation in which a reasonable person would consent to medical care. It is relevant in a situation where a patient is unable to make his or her preferences known, no surrogate decision-maker can be identified, and failure to immediately provide medical care would risk loss of life or limb. |
| Medical futility | “Inability of a medical intervention to fulfill any of the patient’s expressed goals and/or achieve any beneficial physiologic outcomes.”a Note: this is a concept that can be difficult to define or quantify and is often an area of uncertainty, subject to debate. |
↵a From Chow GV, Czarny MJ, Hughes MT, Carrese JA. CURVES: a mnemonic for determining medical decision-making capacity and providing emergency treatment in the acute setting. Chest 2010; 137(2):421–427. doi:10.1378/chest.09-1133