title: [Intensive care as ethical problem. Opening address of the 21st Symposium of the German-Austrian Society of Neonatology and Pediatric Intensive Care Medicine in Mannheim 26 October 1995].
abstract: The lecture focuses on two issues related to intensive care in pediatrics: uncertainty in prognosis and plurality in ethics. Despite the increasing plurality in ethics consensus can be achieved about the basic moral principles in medicine. The principles of medical ethics--mainly autonomy, beneficience, nonmaleficience and justice--provide an acceptable normative basis. The uncertainty of prognosis is described as an unavoidable element of acting in medicine, in particular in intensive care. Internalized dispositions are proposed to be a morally adequate answer to this structure given in medicine: conscientiousness, carefulness, engagement.
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Wiesing
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001317:Austria; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003422:Critical Care; D016638:Critical Illness; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D011247:Pregnancy; D011379:Prognosis
vernacular_title: Intensivmedizin als ethisches Problem. Festvortrag zur Eröffnung des 21. Symposiums der Deutsch-Osterreichischen Gessellschaft für Neonatologie und Pädiatrische Intensivmedizin in Mannheim am 26. 10. 1995.