Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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 n 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.

Disasters and accidents usually occur unexpectedly and without warning, and frequently cause the deaths of millions of people all over the world. In addition to general and specialized medical staff, volunteers, many of whom lack the necessary training for providing care to victims, enter the scene. In recent years, there has been rising concern about prosecution of volunteers who participate in relief operations due to the possibility of harm to victims. The aim of this study was to investigate the application of the "Ihsan rule" to liabilities resulting from unintentional and uninformed actions of volunteers who operate during disaster relief.

This was a review study conducted through examination of related articles on SID, Magiran, Google Scholar and Pubmed. The results showed that the Ihsan rule cannot absolutely and ubiquitously eliminate the liability of volunteers who participate in relief operations after disasters and accidents. The reason is that although the rule recognizes benevolent motives, good intentions and non-anticipation of monetary compensation, volunteer aid should be approved by experts, and the possibility of harming the injured should not exceed the expected benefits. Consequently, volunteer acts in disasters and accidents are acceptable if:

1. Basic training and education is provided to all employees of the medical profession who may volunteer for relief operations after disasters and accidents.
2. Volunteer deployment is executed in the form of committees or specific scientific groups that will organize and train members so that they will perform relief operations according to the guidelines of these institutions.