Medical Ethics - Ethics Tools

You won't need these for the MRCGP, but if you wish to learn more about medical ethics, Dr Ben Green in  http://www.priory.com/ethics.htm lists and discusses the following ethical tools:

The Rings of Uncertainty

Devised by David Seedhouse, it is a tool to analyse areas of uncertainty and suggest ethical action.

It is a graphical model which allows us to reflect upon possible roles and interventions and to collaborate to reach a common understanding. The concentric rings represent varying degrees of uncertainty, with uncertainty increasing with distance from the centre. The rings are also divided into sectors, in this version representing ethics, communication, resources, law and technical competence.

The Ethical Grid

This model is also by David Seedhouse.

It consists of a set of 20 tiles, arranged in 4 concentric rectangular rings of different colour. Each tile makes a simple statement open to interpretation, within a category represented by a different colour.

One use of the tool involves a group examining a specific health issue or hypothesis by progressively removing (or adding) tiles until the fundamental aspects of the issue are represented.

You can download a paper by McLaren and Seedhouse (2001)  It briefly describes the Ethical Grid and Rings of Uncertainty models.

This is the end of our Ethics study guide.

Back to:     Ethics study guide index page

Written by: Michael Harris

Last updated: 16 September 2006