Civility is an essential feature of health care, as it is in so many other areas of human interaction. The article examines the meaning of civility, reviews its origins, and provides reasons for its moral significance in health care. It describes common types of uncivil behavior by health care professionals, patients, and visitors in hospitals and other health care settings, and it suggests strategies to prevent and respond to uncivil behavior, including institutional codes of conduct and disciplinary procedures. The article (...) concludes that uncivil behavior toward health care professionals, patients, and others subverts the moral goals of health care and is therefore unacceptable. Civility is a basic professional duty that health care professionals should embrace, model, and teach. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas often arise when conflict exists. Examples of conflict creating an ethical dilemma may include conflict between two or more principles of bioethics, conflict arising from insufficient information available to discern the appropriate course of action, or conflict between two or more goals of medical interventions. The basic principles of bioethics provide a framework for studying and applying bioethics. Difficulty arises when these principles are not easily addressed or when a clinical situation presents conflict between principles.