Practical Ethics

Abstract

This chapter presents a proactive perspective of bioethics in clinical practice. The ethical foundations for this chapter can be found in Beauchamp and Childress’s Principles of Bioethics (2003) and in Jonsen, Siegler, and Winslade’s Clinical Ethics (2010). The ethics codes of every health care discipline comprising the rehabilitation treatment team provide the practitioner with a set of foundational principles and practice standards that act as field-tested guidelines for effective, efficient, and quality patient-centered care. The challenge for every practitioner is to translate the philosophically based tenets of bioethical principles into readily applicable referents that guide clinical practice. The practice standards embodied in ethics codes attempt to provide that translation from principle to application. However, becoming facile in the process of applying ethics standards requires both understanding and regular practice. To that end, we will endeavor to assist in skill building.