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Sammanfattning

Ethical issues are increasingly being debated in Nordic dental medical and journals, presumably because of increasing concern by society. Moreover, the complexity of ethical problems in daily dental practice has increased due to the growing multicultural composition of the Nordic populations. This ethical reflection is based on the basic principles of respecting the autonomy of the patient, judging benefit as opposed to risk, not causing harm, and acting in accordance with common justice. A major current issue is respect for the autonomy of the patient, which includes the informed consent of the patient as the background of treatment choice. This obviously includes a number of problems, for instance, related to patients, children or the mentally retarded, who are unable to make their own decisions. Another problem arises when the patient"s opinion is in conflict with the dentist"s professional view. Conflicting basic principles are common when judgements include one aspect that is considered to be more important than the other aspects. The dentist"s possible influence on the patient"s choice of treatment may result in treatments that are not the most favourable ones for the patient. Thus, the perspective of economic benefits for the dentist may play a role in the dentist"s counselling of the patient resulting in over-treatment. The handling of offences against professional standards is another ethical issue, and recent discussions include «whistle blowing» as a method of exposing offenders. However, anonymous information about a colleague’s professional misconduct includes major ethical concerns, and the most obvious solution for elucidating the problem is direct contact with the colleague.

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