Nonmaleficence: Avoiding Cusation Of Harm

Nonmaleficence refers to the ethical norm of avoiding causation of harm. 33 It rests on the dictum of primum non nocere, ie, the provider’s obligation not to injure or harm patients and to refrain from actions that would harm them. The term “actions that would harm” highlights the fallibility of medicine, where harm is not always a predictable outcome but based on the probabilities of side effects and complications. Of course, adverse events imply maleficent conduct because harm was not prevented. However, subsequent nondisclosure or incompetent disclosure conduct can be maleficent as well. Providers may decide to exercise their largely discredited “therapeutic privilege” and choose not to disclose an error “for the patient’s benefit”. Such nondisclosure might cause serious additional harm to a patient if it impedes or delays necessary medical intervention. constituting a breach of providers’ ethical duty to learn from past errors in order to protect future patients who might be harmed by a repetition of the same error. …show more content…
Thus, the ethical dictum “do not injure” implies “do not abstain from disclosure”, and “refraining from harmful actions” mandates providers to disclose errors in a competent (ie, effective and appropriate)