Publication Date
5-22-2025
Journal
The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery
DOI
10.2106/JBJS.24.01137
PMID
40403094
Abstract
Medical ethics education is a required component of orthopaedic surgery resident training per the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) guidelines, although no standardized curriculum currently exists.
Beyond the 4 principles of bioethics (autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice), additional ethical concepts relevant to orthopaedic care include utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, moral intuitionism, microethics, and narrative ethics.
Ethical themes identified in the literature relevant to orthopaedic surgery include the ethics involved in medical decision-making, use of new technologies, caring for vulnerable patients, performing high-stakes procedures, the impacts of trainee status on patient care, and patient attitude regarding conflict of interest.
Ethical themes that we sought to identify in the literature but found lacking include the ethics of providing orthopaedic care in low-resource settings, orthopaedics entrepreneurship, disability ethics, trainee mistreatment by their supervisors, and the ethics involved in the recognition and reporting of child and elder abuse.
Published Open-Access
no