A systematic approach to clinical moral reasoning

Abstract

Because the process of moving from moral principles and facts to action-guiding moral conclusions has not been articulated clearly enough to be useful in a practical way, we designed a systematic approach to aid learners and clinicians in their application of ethical principles to the resolution of clinical dilemmas. Our model for clinical moral reasoning is intended to provide a clear and replicable structure that makes the thought process involved in reasoning about clinical cases explicit. In this paper we present the model and demonstrate how it can be used in three clinical cases.