Ethetical ramifications of medicine and psychiatry in cyberspace Essay

Ethetical ramifications of medicine and psychiatry in cyberspace - Essay Example The matter is even more complicated when it comes to ethics in cyberspace where they may be different questions with regard to privacy and confidentiality. Therefore, to fully understand the ethical ramification of medicine and psychiatry in cyberspace, it is important to understand what ethics are and then to see how various ethical issues in cyberspace can be tackled by psychiatrists as well as medical practitioners. The word ethics comes from the Greek language word ethikos which means ‘based on habit’. In scientific terminology, ethics is a branch of philosophy which discusses individual and collective behavior as being right, wrong, good or evil. In business and professional fields such as finance, public relations, advertising and many others, the application of ethical principles is said to be a part of the good practices which establish and increase the credibility of an organization or an individual (Wikipedia, 2006). When it comes to medicine and psychiatry, the world today is very much concerned with ethics since media attention as well as professional organization focus has come to ethics in a very significant way. Velasquez et. al. (1987) report that when people on the street were inquired about the meaning of ethics, they came up with very different answers. Some said that ethics have to do with internal feelings of what is right and wrong while others suggested that ethics are religious beliefs or that ethics are legal requirements. People also considered ethics to be acceptable behavior as given by the rules of society and some people simply did not know what the term ‘ethics’ means. While the responses stated above may come naturally due to the way the word is used, it must be clarified that ethics have nothing to do with internal feelings (Fisher, 2003). In fact, personal feelings and individual emotions about something may lead a