The Importance of Surgical Ethics in Surgical Practice

Presented by Peter Angelos, MD, PhD, FACS
(Recorded April 2019)

In this webinar, Dr. Angelos describes why ethical issues in surgery are distinctive from elsewhere in medicine. He outlines essential aspects of surgical ethics and why attending to the ethical dimension of surgical care can be beneficial no only to patients but also to surgeons.

Learning Objectives

• Identify distinctive features of surgical ethics
• Explain why trust is central to surgical informed consent
• Enumerate why attention to the ethical dimension of surgical care can be beneficial to surgeons as well as patients

More about Peter Angelos

Peter Angelos is the Linda Kohler Anderson Professor of Surgery and Surgical Ethics, chief of endocrine surgery, and associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. A native of Plattsburgh, NY, where his father was a community general surgeon, Dr. Angelos completed his undergraduate degree, medical school, and a PhD in philosophy at Boston University. He completed his residency in general surgery at Northwestern University and went on to complete fellowships in clinical medical ethics at the University of Chicago and in endocrine surgery at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Angelos is a busy endocrine surgeon who has written widely on improving outcomes of thyroid and parathyroid surgery, minimally invasive endocrine surgery, and ethical aspects in the care of surgical patients. He is co-editor of the American College of Surgeons textbook, Ethical Issues in Surgical Care. Dr. Angelos was also a regular contributor to the ACS Surgery News where he wrote a regular column on surgical ethics entitled, “The Right Choice?” from 2011 through 2018. He is a Governor of the American College of Surgeons, a director of the American Board of Surgery, and past president of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons.