Professional ethics is now acknowledged as a field of study in its own right. Much of its recent development has resulted from rethinking traditional medical ethics in the light of new moral problems arising out of advances in medical science and technology. Applied philosophers, ethicists and lawyers have devoted considerable energy to exploring the dilemmas emerging from modern health care practices and their effects on the practitioner-relationship. It is not only technological advance that has had an impact on ethical thinking about the practice of health care, however, but also the wider debates in moral and political philosophy about the contrasting perspectives of individualism and communitarianism
