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Ten steps for resolving ethical dilemmas in veterinary practice
Author(s) -
Yeates James,
McKeegan Dorothy
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
in practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.211
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 2042-7689
pISSN - 0263-841X
DOI - 10.1136/inp.l1423
Subject(s) - ethical issues , veterinary medicine , engineering ethics , face (sociological concept) , moral dilemma , medicine , psychology , sociology , social psychology , social science , engineering
Veterinary practitioners frequently face ethical dilemmas but it can be hard to know where to start in resolving them. Repeated exposure to challenging ethical conflicts may cause an erosion of emotional wellbeing and even a state of ‘moral distress’, a phenomenon that certainly exists in veterinary clinical environments and contributes to the generally stressful nature of the occupation. This article, the last in a series of three, describes a step‐by‐step framework to guide, structure and aid ethical reasoning for veterinary practitioners who are faced with difficult ethical dilemmas in practice. The first article in this series discussed the general principles of veterinary ethics (January/February 2019, volume 41, pp 42‐44) and the second article applied these principles to a case of tail docking (March 2019, volume 41, pp 88‐91).