Everyday clinical dilemmas
Salisbury H., Dixon S., Papanikitas AN.
Everyday clinical dilemmas in general practice may not always be recognised as involving ethical challenges. Such cases will typically make the GP feel a bit uncomfortable and uncertain. Ethics is often seen as relevant to abstruse and complicated cases, such as cases concerning genetic testing for Huntingdon’s chorea or the reckless patient with a contagious disease. Complicated cases present relatively rarely, are recognisable and prompt us to readily seek advice from colleagues. This article offers four everyday clinical cases that illustrate ethical challenges to encourage not only thought and discussion about these cases, but also about similar cases that will present commonly to GPs and may be the subject of case-based discussions within ePortfolios or appraisal.