Workshop 05

Background: Ethical dilemmas are common in the daily practice of family physicians and primary healthcare providers. Having at least a basic knowledge of the ethical principles is essential for every physician to adequately resolve such issues.

Providing medical care to underprivileged usually poses an additional burden on the physicians who usually find themselves stuck between the obligation to provide the optimal healthcare services and their limited treatment options restricted by the scarce resources.

In this workshop, we will be discussing the issue of access to healthcare by the underprivileged using real case examples. We also would like to show how ethics is part and parcels of medicine and any real professional medical endeavor cannot afford to brush ethical issues away.

Aim: This workshop aims at raising awareness of family physicians on the ethical issues embedded within most clinical encounters, and particularly when providing care to underprivileged in the settings of limited resources.

Session Description/Methodology

This workshop is one of the activities of the Working Party on Ethical Issues. It is structured as follows:

• Basic ethical principles refresher: brief presentation
• Case presentation (2-3 cases)
• Live polling by audience on the different aspects of the cases
• Group discussion and debriefing

Conclusion: Physicians face challenging ethical cases while providing care for the underprivileged, however ethical principles awareness can help them overcome these challenges.