Medical ethics and disaster

The definition of disaster is diverse but certainly the similarity between disaster and normal condition is negligible. The most important characteristic of critical condition is the number of human victims. Therefore each critical condition needs medical intervention and the presence of health care providers is necessary.Health care services are divided into two categories one in normal situation and the other in the critical condition; so the ethical considerations and responsibilities of the health care providers will differ accordingly.Our approach for explaining medical ethics or ethics in health care in critical conditions is two dimensional including the responsibilities of health care providers and ethical problem solving. The second dimension needs systematic approach which is not possible in this article. In the case of the responsibilities of health care providers we may focus on individualized viewpoint or systematic and strategic view point however the later is more complete and acceptable. From systematic viewpoint three important issues should be considered; ethical principles, ethical codes and multi dimensional ethical charter of each organization. In this review we aimed at describing some ethical principles and codes of conduct and the ethical principles of Red Cross and Red Crescent as well. In conclusion, critical conditions are far wider and there are full range of special situations in which no unique solution can be followed. It is necessary to determine the diverse fields affecting the condition and solve the resultant ethical issues in a problem oriented manner. In addition medical ethics should be considered as one of the most important priorities of the Ministry of Health and other related organizations.