tailieunhanh - Ethical Aspects of Aesthetic Medicine

An emphasis on scenic beauty may lead one to devaluate that which is not beautiful—the rotted log, or the humus, or trees that have burned, blighted, or contorted, or Burnet's 'wild, vast, undigested heaps of Stones and Earth'. One wants to be able to appreciate prairies, swamps, tundras, and deserts. We start looking out for a prospect that pleases us, a pastoral scene, something that photographs well, a recreational scenic view, but we end with insight into wild processes that ignore us completely. Just that insight outside our aesthetic response becomes aesthetically stimulating. . | Ethical Aspects of Aesthetic Medicine 2 Urban Wiesing Introduction When physicians concern themselves with the aesthetic aspects of their patients public opinion varies on the topic. On the one hand certain measures are required in order to improve the aesthetic appearance of a person. They are a normal part of the medical profession. For example to reconstruct the deformed face of a caraccident victim or to give a patient with a serious skin disease the most normal appearance possible undoubtedly belongs to the art of medicine. On the other hand there are several medical procedures that are concerned with the aesthetics of their patients being criticized. For example one could mention television programs in which physicians help participants to look more like celebrities I want a famous face MTV . Furthermore there are cases in which physicians performed aesthetic operations obviously too frequently and with harm to the patient or did not do so in accordance with safety standards 1 . Here the question arose whether physicians participation is ethically acceptable. The doubts were supported by the fact that medicine is expanding with the growing number of aesthetic measures to a field that frequently does not have anything to do with the treatment of illness anymore and goes beyond the traditional core of medicine. U. Wiesing Institut fur Ethik und Geschichte der Medizin Eberhard-Karls-Universitat Tubingen Gartenstrasse 47 72074 Tubingen Germany e-mail At this point it should be addressed whether and - if so - under what conditions physicians should perform aesthetic interventions on their patients. This question cannot be answered without reference to the medical profession and its characteristics. Furthermore one must systematize the various medical efforts for the aesthetics of the patient. Only then it can be clarified to what extent certain measures are in accordance with the ethos of the medical profession and what .