title: [The hospital as an ethical organism].
abstract: In hospital medicine, medical ethics and the ethics of health care management are interwoven. In other words, between the hospital as an institution and as a collection of individual persons. Some authors maintain that the hospital cannot exist as an ethical organism with its own being in a pluralist society. In this contribution, the author defends the view that a hospital is and behaves as a moral agent, and that it must do so to survive. For this, a hospital must publicly define its mission and philosophy, its values and principles as norms that make up its ethical code or ideological framework, since, to great extent, it is a moral, juridical and social entity. This ideology is the human project that the hospital owes to itself and which must inspire all those who work there. At the same time, it must opt for the ethical education of students and resident doctors who train there.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Humanidades Biomédicas. Facultad de Medicina. Universidad de Navarra. Apartado 177; 31080 Pamplona. gherranz@unav.es
authors.forename: Gonzalo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Herranz Rodríguez
mesh_terms: D006739:Hospital Administration / Q000941:ethics*; D006761:Hospitals / Q000941:ethics*