Ethics in otolaryngology.

Abstract

All organic life has a code of behavior that is predetermined by the laws of survival and propagation. Some of these codes and systems are curiously complicated, yet each behavioral pattern contains the moral and ethical laws that endorse survival. This single axiom is the over-riding ethic. Man has added inventions, dexterity and feeling to the living program, and this has increased the complexity of moral and ethical conduct. It is in this milieu of interrelations, which is beyond physical survival, where our conscience and our performance must try to equate our sense of right. With millions of years of atavistic inheritance in the brutal struggle for survival it would be unrealistic to believe that Man could accomplish this easily, or ever completely. It also injects the question as to whether this is the basic normative for humans, or whether it is an emotional addendum in what is identified as a civilizing process. In ancient times, ethics was a derivative of philosophical thinking. Today it is enmeshed in the management of ceaseless and sophisticated technical and scientific advances which have religious, sociological and legal implications which are energized by human emotion and personal opinion, and which, in some instances, present problems which can be solved only partially or are unsolvable. The medical profession is in the midst of this turmoil.