How do I approach medical ethics questions

Obviously everyone will answer differently to an ethical question and there are many correct answers, but some things are important to mention, for example the use of an ethics board in the decision making process, and consideration of the four main pillars of medical ethics; autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence. Autonomy represents the idea that doctors must respect the free will of a patient to choose their own treatment and make decisions. This often is debated in terms of whether a patient can give consent, for example to a controversial treatment. Justice is linked to equality and fairness. This might be linked to how to distribute funding to certain treatments, or more commonly how to decide who might receive an organ on the organ donor list. The main message to get across in such a question is that we cannot discriminate according to factors such as age, family, or social status. We can only make decisions about who should receive treatment by looking at the likelihood of success of the treatment, and to what extent the treatment would be beneficial to the patient, for example in terms of how many more years a patient might gain as a result of the treatment. Beneficence is the idea that doctor's actions must be for the benefit of the patient, and non-maleficence is the idea that doctors must not do harm to patients . These two pillars can often clash, for example when a beneficial treatment can also induce harmful side effects. In an answer about an ethical dilemma one can therefore call upon these four pillars to make sure to cover the main issues that are often debated in medicine, should they apply in the context of the question.