Sjókrnismálum

Sjúkrnismálum is the Icelandic term for the field commonly known in English as medical ethics or bioethics. It encompasses the ethical, legal, and policy questions that arise from medical care and health research within Icelandic society. The scope includes clinical ethics, research ethics, and public health ethics, addressing issues such as patient autonomy, informed consent, beneficence, non-maleficence, confidentiality, and the patient–physician relationship, as well as governance of medical data and research participants.

Clinical ethics covers day-to-day decisions in patient care, including consent processes, disclosure of information, and balancing benefits and harms in treatment. Research ethics focuses on protecting participants, ensuring proper risk–benefit assessment, fair subject selection, and data protection. Public health ethics considers population-level questions, such as allocation of scarce resources, vaccination strategies, and surveillance programs, while respecting individual rights.

The field interacts with law, professional codes of conduct, and health policy. It informs guidelines used by clinicians, hospital ethics committees, researchers, and policymakers, and it plays a role in medical and nursing education, as well as ongoing professional development. Sjókrnismálum reflects broader global bioethical debates while adapting to Icelandic legal frameworks, cultural values, and the organization of the national health system.

Key debates in sjúkrnismálum include balancing patient autonomy with beneficence, protecting vulnerable groups, ensuring fair distribution of limited resources, privacy versus data access for research, and ethical aspects of end-of-life care and reproductive decisions.

See also: bioethics, medical ethics, health law, patient rights, Icelandic health policy.