We have been talking about ethics in class this past week and it got me interested in what kind of light the Hippocratic oath could shed on it. Ethics is defined as dealing with the general principles of right and wrong, as opposed to requirements of law. We talked about if a doctor is in the middle of surgery and he finds a problem that is not related to the surgery is it wrong if he treats it without your consent? This is what I found in the Hippocratic oath "Among the promises of the Hippocratic oath are to use the form of treatment best for the patient, to refrain from harmful actions, and to keep a patients private information confidential". So the truth is yes there are some instances such as if the matter is life threatening the doctors are allowed to treat you even if its not what you were originally being treated for. The reason doctors are able to do this is because of implied consent. So because you have already given consent for the first surgery if a life threatening issue is found they are allowed to treat you.
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