Ethics in Pharmacy Practice Materials

ETHICS IN PHARMACY PRACTICE

Faculty:

Steven Malen, PharmD, MBA

Dr. Steven Malen graduated with a dual degree: Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Rhode Island. Over his career, he has worked as a clinical pharmacist in the retail, specialty, and compounding sectors. He specialized and taught on topics from vaccines to veterinary compounding.

Pamela Sardo, PharmD, BS

Pamela Sardo, PharmD, BS, is a freelance medical writer and licensed pharmacist. She is the founder and principal at Sardo Solutions in Texas. Pam received her BS from the University of Connecticut and her PharmD from the University of Rhode Island. Pam’s career spans many years in retail, clinics, hospitals, long-term care, Veterans Affairs, and managed health care responsibilities across a broad range of therapeutic classes and disease states.

Abstract

In the pharmacy setting, pharmacists and pharmacy staff may be guided by the Code of Ethics for Pharmacists and the principles embodied in the Oath of a Pharmacist. Ethics can be divided into three categories: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Beauchamp and Childress built on the ethical theory called principlism. They describe four principles that are foundational to ethics in biomedicine: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Confidentiality may be added as a fifth foundational principle. Principlism is attractive for its simplicity, but ethical pluralism challenges this view, arguing that norms are not necessarily universal but can vary. The principles underlying medical ethics benefit patients. They drive patient-centered care, which improves patient outcomes. The principle of beneficence is not universally part of ethical standards in other professions. It promotes patient-centered care and empathy in the patient-clinician relationship. Non-maleficence requires clinicians not to harm patients. Ethics in medical practice can foster patient safety. However, not all clinicians share the same religious or moral beliefs, and difficult ethical questions arise when these beliefs conflict with codes or oaths or affect patient care.

Accreditation Statements

In support of improving patient care, RxCe.com LLC is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council^TM for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME^®), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE^®), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC^®), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Joint Universal Activity Number: The Joint Accreditation Universal Activity Numbers assigned to this activity are as follows:

Pharmacists: JA4008424-0000-26-020-H03-P

Pharmacy Technicians: JA4008424-0000-26-020-H03-T

Credits: 2 contact hour(s) (0.2 CEU(s)) of continuing education credit.

Credit Types:

Pharmacy - 2 Credits

Type of Activity: Knowledge

Media: Computer-Based Training (i.e., online courses)

Estimated time to complete activity: 2 contact hour(s) (0.2 CEU(s)), including Course Test and course evaluation.

Release Date: February 28, 2026 Expiration Date: February 28, 2029

Target Audience: This educational activity is for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians

How to Earn Credit: From February 28, 2026, through February 28, 2029, participants must:

Read the “learning objectives” and “author and planning team disclosures;”

Take the “Educational Activity Pre-Test;”

Study the section entitled “Educational Activity;” and

Complete the Educational Activity Post-Test and Activity Evaluation. The Educational Activity Post-Test will be graded automatically. Following successful completion of the Educational Activity Post-Test with a score of 70% or higher, a statement of participation will be made available immediately. (No partial credit will be given.)

CME Credit: Credit for this course will be uploaded to CPE Monitor^® for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. All learners shall verify their individual licensing board’s specific requirements and eligibility criteria.

Statement of Need

Ethical decision-making is necessary for safe, patient-centered care. Pharmacy teams routinely navigate the intersection of ethics, personal morality, and evolving legal requirements when processing pharmaceutical care and counseling patients. Even though statutes and organizational policies exist, many practitioners feel underprepared to distinguish between what is ethical and what is legal, or personally moral, and to apply the pharmacy code of ethics consistently in real-world scenarios. Ethical lapses or uncertainty can undermine patient trust, compromise autonomy, and negatively affect outcomes. This activity aims to strengthen understanding of ethics as a distinct professional framework and to enhance skills for recognizing and addressing ethical dilemmas in healthcare settings.

Learning Objectives: Upon completion of this educational activity, participants should be able to:

Define ethics and describe how it differs from morality and legality

Define ethics and discuss parts of the pharmacy code of ethics

Discuss why ethics is important to patient care

Recognize common ethical dilemmas when dispensing drugs or providing drug information

Disclosures

The following individuals were involved in planning, developing, and/or authoring this activity: Steven Malen, PharmD, MBA, and Pamela Sardo, PharmD, BS. None of the individuals involved in developing this activity has a conflict of interest or financial relationships related to the subject matter. There are no financial relationships or commercial or financial support relevant to this activity to report or disclose by RxCe.com or any of the individuals involved in the development of this activity. 

© RxCe.com LLC 2026: All rights reserved. No reproduction of all or part of any content herein is allowed without the prior, written permission of RxCe.com LLC.

Educational Activity Pre-Test

Ethics may be described as

mandatory laws that carry criminal penalties.

the study of the nature of morals and the specific moral choices to be made.

esoteric principles that are interesting but not relevant to day-to-day moral choices.

the study of societal conflicts or other societal changes.

The Code of Ethics for Pharmacists, Tenet I, refers to the pharmacist-patient relationship as

paternalistic.

a covenantal relationship.

pluralistic.

a communal relationship.

Informed consent is considered essential to which of the following principles, particularly in contexts like AI-driven diagnostics, where patient understanding of data use is critical?

Digital empathy

Confidentiality

The disinhibition effect

Autonomy

Educational Activity

Ethics in Pharmacy Practice

Introduction

Ethics comprises a set of principles or rules of conduct that derive from moral standards. In the broad sense, ethics applies to many situations and relationships in life. In healthcare, ethics concerns what a healthcare professional should do when providing care and how ethical conduct affects patient care and outcomes. In the pharmacy setting, pharmacists and pharmacy staff may be guided by the Code of Ethics for Pharmacists and the principles embodied in the Oath of a Pharmacist, but not all clinicians have the same religious or moral beliefs, and difficult ethical questions arise when these beliefs come into conflict with codes or oaths, or impact patient care.

The Development of Ethical Standards

Ethics is “a broad term that covers the study of the nature of morals and the specific moral choices to be made.”¹ Thus, ethics includes an accepted set of principles or rules of conduct that people use, or should use, to govern their choices in their day-to-day lives and interactions with others; but how do ethical standards or a code of ethics form? This can be studied by examining the branches of ethics and asking how societal norms are formed and what foundations, concepts, or values underlie them.

Branches of Ethics

Ethics can be divided into three categories: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics.^1-3

Metaethics

Metaethics examines morality and how it forms.^1,2 Metaethics questions the psychological factors, presuppositions, practices, and reasoning behind morality. Metaethics asks whether morality is subjective or grounded in objective truth. Metaethics also probes the connection between moral standards of human conduct.^1,2 In this context, a distinction may be made between morality as a choice versus what a person must or ought to do.

Normative Ethics

Normative ethics studies the “norms” that make up ethical rules.^1-3 These principles guide a person to do the right thing in certain circumstances or to do what is considered good. These are often mirrored in professional oaths and codes of ethics.

Applied Ethics

Applied Ethics considers how ethical standards are applied in real-world situations.^1-3 When applying an ethical standard, moral questions often arise. For example, a physician takes an oath to “First, do no harm,” and then is asked to assist a patient in dying (euthanasia). Is this moral? Is it ethical?⁴

Societal Norms and Principlism

As stated above, normative ethics studies the “norms” that make up ethical rules, but how do ethical rules become norms? And what values underpin the evolution of these rules?

Biomedical ethics differs somewhat from general ethics, so to answer these questions in medicine, a review of normative biomedical ethics begins with the seminal work of Beauchamp and Childress.^5,6 In more recent years, scholars have questioned the approach of Beauchamp and Childress and considered divergent views, but Beauchamp and Childress’ work is still widely used and considered when discussing biomedical ethics.

Beauchamp and Childress built on the ethical theory called principlism.⁶ Principlism in biomedical ethics is best described as ethics based on foundational principles that are universal. Beauchamp and Childress describe four principles that are foundational to ethics in biomedicine: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice.⁶ These four principles form the “societal norms” that identify what a healthcare professional should do or what is good.^1,6,7 Beauchamp and Childress argue that from these principles comes a “common morality” made up of the “norms about right and wrong human conduct that are so widely shared that they form a stable social compact”⁶ For example, the rule that a person should not steal from a neighbor or harm another person is universal; these norms are not individual or limited to certain situations, but are commonly regarded as the standard.^6,7

The strength of principlism lies in its perceived societal consensus (universality).⁷ (Some scholars add an additional principle, confidentiality - respecting and protecting patient information - which will also be discussed below.)¹ It is believed here that when a person is confronted with an ethical decision, “appealing to norms of the common morality” produces the best results.⁷

Autonomy

The ethical principle of autonomy holds that every person has intrinsic, unconditional worth and should make their own decisions and moral choices.¹ Informed consent is essential to patient autonomy. Informed consent can be given by a competent patient who receives full disclosure, comprehends it, and acts voluntarily.¹

Non-maleficence

Non-maleficence is the principle that a healthcare professional should not cause harm to a patient. It embodies the Hippocratic Oath:¹ “Primum non nocere,” translated, “First, do no harm.”⁸

Beneficence

Beneficence obliges a clinician to act in the patient's best interests, to protect and defend the patient's rights, to prevent harm, and to remove conditions that may cause harm.¹

Justice

Justice is understood as the fair and equitable treatment of others. In medical ethics, justice refers to fair access to healthcare, or health equity.¹

Confidentiality

With some exceptions, healthcare clinicians are obligated to keep patient medical information confidential and not disclose it without the patient's prior permission.¹

Societal Norms and Ethical Pluralism

Principlism is attractive for its simplicity, but ethical pluralism challenges this view, arguing that norms are not necessarily universal and can be diverse. Pluralism raises questions about whether principlism can guide moral decision-making in clinical settings, given that it does not account for cultural differences or emotional and personal factors.⁷ Principlism may not reflect the ethical decision-making process in clinical practice, and it does not guide actions sufficiently or explain how professional integrity can be obtained.⁷ It could be that when it comes to the application of Beauchamp and Childress’ four principles, the decision-making process and conclusions reached can be quite different depending on a person’s cultural starting point.^9-11 This emphasizes the importance of cultural competency within healthcare.

Ethics in Medicine Should be Patient-Centered

The focus of biomedical ethics needs to be patient-centered and promote positive patient outcomes.^12,13 Erstad (2022) reviewed research on ethics related to pharmacy practices and found that researchers listed “fair dealing and equity, patient-centered care, and faithfulness as virtues common to practicing pharmacists.”¹² This is reflected in the Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process (PPCP) document approved in 2014, which was incorporated into the accreditation standards of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE).¹² “One of the stated goals of the process is to provide a comprehensive approach to team-based, patient-centered care.”¹²

Codes of Ethics and Oaths

The patient-centered approach to biomedical ethics is reflected in the codes of ethics and oaths. A code of ethics or oath is a guide, and not necessarily a mandatory law.^14,15 Codes of ethics and oaths often emphasize revised versions of the principles of Beauchamp and Childress - autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice.¹⁶ As mentioned above, confidentiality is also regarded as an important principle.^1,16

Code of Ethics for Pharmacists The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) has published the Code of Ethics for Pharmacists.14,15 The Code of Ethics for Pharmacists may be obtained from APhA at https://www.pharmacist.com/Code-of-Ethics

The Code begins with Tenet I, which describes the pharmacist-patient relationship as a covenant.^14,15 A covenant evokes promises or obligations a pharmacist must fulfill when caring for a patient in exchange for the “gift of trust” the patient has placed in the pharmacist.¹⁵ However, this tenet may be more of an “ideal” that a pharmacist should strive for in day-to-day practice, rather than a description of the relationship.¹⁴

As mentioned above, codes of ethics often include principles of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, justice, and confidentiality. The Code of Ethics for Pharmacists is no different.¹⁵ For example, tenet II embodies beneficence and confidentiality: “A pharmacist promotes the good of every patient in a caring, compassionate, and confidential manner.”¹⁵ Tenet III promotes patient autonomy: “A pharmacist respects the autonomy and dignity of each patient.”¹⁵ Tenets IV and V describe a form of non-maleficence: “IV. … A pharmacist avoids discriminatory practices, behavior, or work conditions that impair professional judgment, and actions that compromise dedication to the best interests of patients,”¹⁵ and “V. A pharmacist maintains professional competence.”¹⁵ Finally, a pharmacist seeks justice: “VIII. A pharmacist seeks justice in the distribution of health resources. When health resources are allocated, a pharmacist is fair and equitable, balancing the needs of patients and society.”¹⁵

Ethical standards are also reflected in the oath professionals may take at the beginning of their careers.^17-19 A pharmacist “will promote inclusion, embrace diversity, and advocate for justice to advance health equity; assure optimal outcomes for all patients; and respect and protect all personal and health information entrusted to [the pharmacist].”¹⁹

Oath of a Pharmacist The Oath of a Pharmacist19 may be obtained from APhA at https://www.pharmacist.com/About/Oath-of-a-Pharmacist

These principles and standards provide guidance for appropriate ethical and professional behavior.^15,19 This means that a pharmacist’s conduct is guided not only by the Code and Oath on ethical conduct toward patients but also toward colleagues and coworkers.^15,19 For example, tenet VI states that “[a] pharmacist respects the values and abilities of colleagues and other health professionals.”¹⁵

Some ethical rules may be codified into law, making them “mandatory,” and raising the specter of potential criminal or administrative consequences. An example of this would be the ethical principle of “First, do no harm.” In some cases, if a professional harms a patient, criminal consequences may result if the harm was intentional, or a loss of a professional license may result if the harm was caused by negligence.

Why Ethics is Important to Patient Care

The principles underlying medical ethics benefit patients.^16,20 They lead to patient-centered care, which in turn improves patient outcomes.¹² Ethics is a framework that ensures dignity, safety, and respect for patient rights. Beneficence promotes patient-centered care and empathy in the patient-clinician relationship.²⁰ Empathy is integral to building trust between patients and healthcare professionals.²⁰ Non-maleficence calls on clinicians not to harm a patient.²⁰ The practical application of non-maleficence requires a clinician to make a benefits-risks analysis before recommending a treatment.¹ Ethics in medical practice can foster patient safety.²¹ This is particularly evident in addressing the opioid crisis, where pharmacists’ roles in preventative services like screening, brief interventions, and naloxone distribution are crucial for reducing misuse and overdose risks.²²

Ethics in medical practice also improves healthcare professionals' outlook, leading to higher job satisfaction and less professional burnout.¹⁶ It also promotes respect between colleagues and coworkers. Working together culminates in better patient-clinician relationships, patient outcomes, and work environments.

Ethical Considerations in Clinical Practice

Ethical decisions are made daily in clinical practice. A clinician may face ethical dilemmas, especially when the moral principles underlying bioethics come into conflict.¹ In other cases, special circumstances may make ethical decision-making more difficult.⁵ A few examples will be discussed here, including the opioid crisis, where pharmacists report concerns about opioid misuse (75% in recent surveys) and must balance harm prevention with patient access, often through screening, education, and naloxone provision.²³

Beneficence and Autonomy

A healthcare provider must act for the benefit of the patient, but what does a provider do if the patient, exercising autonomy, makes a treatment choice that will not benefit the patient, or will even do harm? Should the clinician take on a paternalistic role and make the healthcare decision for the patient?⁷ Should patients with varying degrees of dementia be given some level of autonomy?⁵ These questions, and other related questions, can create a dilemma for a clinician. As mentioned above, patient autonomy requires that the patient have the mental capacity to understand disclosures made by the clinician.¹

Sample Patient Case

A 42-year-old male with a known diagnosis of HIV infection is admitted to a hospital with a mycobacterial infection. This is the patient’s third hospitalization in 12 months. His medical record documents a history of poor adherence to prescribed antiretroviral therapy (ART). At each admission, the interprofessional team modified his ART regimen due to concerns about emerging resistance and repeated nonadherence. The patient receives counseling on the importance of strict adherence during each hospitalization, including the risk of virologic failure, drug resistance, and disease progression. Despite this, the patient admits to the staff that he stopped taking his antiretroviral medications within two weeks after his previous two inpatient treatments.

Today, during this hospital stay, the physician counsels the patient again and discusses the high risk of further resistance due to interrupted treatment. The hospitalist decides not to prescribe any HIV treatment because the patient consistently makes the unfortunate decision to discontinue the medication each time it is prescribed.

Pause and Ponder Is the physician’s decision to withhold antiretroviral therapy ethically justifiable? Why or why not?

Patient Case

An ethical dilemma can become even more pronounced when a minor child is involved. Kruijtbosch, et al. (2018) provided an example of a mother who requested paracetamol (acetaminophen) for her 1-year-old baby who had a high fever for a week.²⁴ The pharmacist believed that the treatment preference of the mother was not supported by evidence-based medicine or professional guidelines and that the treatment could be ineffective or harmful. In this situation, a pharmacist reported, “I tried to convince her to consult her [primary physician] as her baby might have a dangerous infection. She didn’t agree. Her attitude frustrated me. I want to do what is best for the baby, but at the same time have to respect the mother’s decision.”²⁴

Pause and Ponder Should any action be taken in this case? Why or why not?

Autonomy and Confidentiality

Patient Case

Situations can arise in which a pharmacist believes it is in the patient’s best interest to share the patient’s medical information, even if the patient refuses consent or requests that the information not be disclosed.²⁴ In another example by Kruijtbosch, et al., a female patient who is being treated for bipolar disorder told her pharmacist that she wanted to discontinue her prescription for mirtazapine. She expressly told the pharmacist not to notify her psychiatrist. The pharmacist wanted to respect the patient’s confidentiality and autonomy, but he felt it was in the patient’s best interest to notify her psychiatrist.²⁴

Pause and Ponder How would you handle this situation and why?

Ethical Decision-making

Varkey (2021) presents an ethical dilemma involving two patients who present to the emergency department with respiratory illnesses.¹ Both patients test positive for COVID-19. One patient is a 74-year-old woman who resides in an assisted living facility. She has shortness of breath and malaise, among other conditions. The other patient is a 22-year-old male who has had flu-like symptoms for a week that have progressively worsened.¹

At the time the patients enter the emergency department, they are both in respiratory failure, and both are in urgent need of intubation and mechanical ventilation; however, there is only one ventilator available at the time. Who should be given the ventilator?¹ This scenario is complicated by the presence of a pandemic, which may give rise to slightly different rules. Moreover, this dilemma is particularly critical because it involves a life-or-death decision for patients. Varkey states that “[p]riorities need to be established ethically and must be applied consistently. The social norm is that everyone should be treated equally. This decision may also be driven by 'maximizing benefits.’¹

Ethical decision-making can be challenging not only by difficult ethical questions, as above, but also by the realities of professional practice. For example, ethical considerations may be overlooked in a high-volume community pharmacy setting, where the pharmacist and staff lack the time or workspace to fulfill their ethical obligations.²¹

Ethics and Technology

New technologies can affect the patient-clinician relationship, patient care, and patient healthcare data privacy. These concerns are especially evident in newer technologies such as telehealth, social media in healthcare, the digitization of medicine, artificial intelligence (AI), and pharmacogenomics. The impact of technology on medicine must be aligned with the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, and the pharmacist’s code to assure optimal outcomes for all patients.^19,25 In the pharmacy setting, there is also a concern that AI could displace non-specialized pharmacists.²⁶

Patient-Clinician Relationship and Patient Care

Of particular importance is the impact of new technologies on empathy within the patient-clinician relationship.²⁷ Empathy by healthcare providers is recognized as vital to patient care and the patient-provider relationship.²⁸ Empathy fosters compassion, fairness, and care for others. Its presence has a positive effect on a patient’s satisfaction, a practitioner’s ability to treat the patient, and the patient’s health outcome.²⁸ On the other hand, the absence of empathy can have an expected negative impact on patient care, potentially leading to errors in decision-making.

Privacy Protection for Patient Healthcare Data

Key ethical considerations center on protecting patient data privacy under HIPAA. Healthcare professionals have an obligation to maintain confidentiality and to disclose information only as permitted by law and patient consent.^29-31

Another area where privacy is a concern is in the use of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs).^32,33 Law enforcement agencies want access to PDMP data as part of their investigative tools to combat crime.^32,33 This issue can lead to conflict between patient privacy rights and public safety.

Finally, social media has also created ethical dilemmas. These issues concern not only interactions with patients and the protection of patient confidentiality, but also interactions between colleagues and coworkers.²⁷

Ethics and Pharmacogenomics

Ethical questions have emerged in Pharmacogenomics. Pharmacogenomics studies how an individual's genetic makeup affects their body's reaction to drugs. This could help optimize medication selection, dosage, and maximize efficacy and safety. However, ethical questions must be addressed in this field: Should patient consent be required for large-scale genomic data collection? Will ownership of the data collected be public or corporate? Will there be equitable access to treatments based on genetic testing, which may only benefit small patient populations?³⁴

Conscience Clauses and the Right to Refuse Services

Conscience clause laws have been a controversial topic in healthcare for decades. These laws allow healthcare providers to opt out of providing certain medical procedures or services on religious or moral grounds.³⁵ In pharmacy practice, conscience clauses may allow pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to refuse to dispense certain medications or perform certain procedures.³⁵ However, the application of conscience clause laws in pharmacy practice varies by state, and it is important for pharmacists to understand the laws and regulations in their state.³⁵

According to a study by Curlin, et al. (2007), many pharmacists maintain that their personal beliefs should be taken into account when dispensing medications, and they support the conscience clause.³⁶ Some states have codified this position into a right.³⁷

Pharmacists should understand that while a conscience clause in their jurisdiction may allow them to refuse services, they are still responsible for informing patients of their decision and making appropriate arrangements for the patient to receive the necessary medication or service from another provider.³⁸

For example, some pharmacists may refuse to dispense certain medications, such as emergency contraception or medications used in assisted suicide, based on their religious or moral beliefs. In these cases, conscience clause laws allow pharmacists to decline to engage in activities they believe are morally or ethically wrong. During the COVID-19 pandemic, similar ethical tensions arose over vaccine mandates, in which providers balanced personal beliefs with public health duties, emphasizing informed consent, equity, and transparency in vaccination programs.³⁹

Opponents of conscience clause laws argue that they can adversely affect patients.⁴⁰ For example, if a pharmacist refuses to dispense a medication, it may delay or prevent a patient from receiving necessary care. This can be especially problematic in emergency situations, where timely access to medication can be life-saving. In addition, opponents argue that conscience clause laws can disproportionately affect certain populations, such as women and LGBTQ+ individuals, who may face discrimination or barriers to accessing care.⁴¹

The application of conscience clause laws for pharmacy technicians varies by state. For example, South Dakota explicitly includes pharmacy technicians in its conscience clause law, which allows healthcare providers to refuse to participate in procedures that violate their religious or moral beliefs.³⁷ Similarly, Arizona allows pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to refuse to participate in activities that result in an abortion.⁴² In California, pharmacists may refuse to dispense medication based on their religious or moral beliefs, but there is no explicit provision for pharmacy technicians.⁴³

It is important for pharmacists to be aware of their state's conscience clause laws and regulations. Failure to do so can result in disciplinary action or legal consequences. For example, in 2007, a pharmacist in Wisconsin was fired and faced disciplinary action from the state pharmacy board for refusing to dispense emergency contraception.⁴⁴ In addition, pharmacists who refuse to dispense medication may face ethical dilemmas if they believe their actions prevent patients from receiving necessary care.⁴⁴

Summary

Ethics can be divided into three categories: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics examines morality and how it forms. Normative ethics studies the “norms” that make up ethical rules. Applied Ethics considers how ethical standards are applied in real-world situations.

Biomedical ethics differs somewhat from general ethics, so to answer these questions in medicine, a review of normative biomedical ethics begins with the work of Beauchamp and Childress. They describe four principles that are foundational to ethics. In medicine, the guiding principles are autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. These principles constitute the “societal norms” that define what a healthcare professional should do and what is good.

The patient-centered approach to biomedical ethics is reflected in the codes of ethics and oaths. A code of ethics or oath is a guide, and not necessarily a mandatory law. Codes of ethics and oaths often emphasize revised versions of the principles of Beauchamp and Childress.

The principles underlying medical ethics benefit patients. They drive patient-centered care, which improves patient outcomes. The principle of beneficence is not universally part of ethical standards in other professions. It promotes patient-centered care and empathy in the patient-clinician relationship. Ethics in medical practice also improves healthcare professionals' outlook, leading to higher job satisfaction and less professional burnout.

Overall, evolving ethical frameworks must adapt to these dynamics by incorporating cultural competency, enhanced professional education, and focused responses to crises to ensure equitable, patient-centered care in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

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Terry C, Cain J. The Emerging Issue of Digital Empathy. Am J Pharm Educ. 2016;80(4):58. doi:10.5688/ajpe80458

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