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Sexually Transmitted Diseases And Ethics
Muammer EŞREFOĞLU*
* İnönü University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Dermatology, Malatya, TURKEY
Dermatology experienced extraordinary number of changes in the past years including new diagnostic techniques, new therapeutic agents, and even new organisms such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). However, there are some important basic principles in medicine that have not changed during the past years because they are immutable. The principles of professionalism and medical ethics offered guidelines and standards for physicians from the time of Hippocrates. In general terms, ethics can be considered the science of moral duty. A very important practical application of both professionalism and medical ethics is the patient-physician relationship that is based on trust. The combination of the increased burden of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the developing world and the absence of inexpensive therapies and vaccines has raised the sensitivity of health professionals to issues of ethics in international biomedical research. AIDS provides a good model for evaluating almost all basic ethical principles that can find application in a medical context. From the identification of those infected, the search for an effective therapy, the treatment of the patient, to the empathy with the dying have been taken into account. There is probably no other disease that touches upon a comparably broad spectrum of ethical principles. Here we discussed the ethical dimensions of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS.Keywords: Sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, EthicsTurkiye Klinikleri J Med Ethics 2002, 10:81-86
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