Abstract

Background: Medical negligence is traditionally adjudicated as a breach of contractual duty under consumer protection and tort law. Medical ethics, however, is the prerogative of professional councils, serving as a moral and disciplinary framework. The overlap between these domains raises questions about whether invoking ethics in negligence adjudication is justified. Objective: To critically examine the relationship between medical ethics and medical negligence, and to debate whether ethical codes should influence legal adjudication of negligence in a transactional, contract-based framework of medical services. Methods: An AI-mediated debate format was employed to analyze conceptual distinctions between ethics and law, the custodial role of medical councils, and the contractual nature of medical consent post-Consumer Protection Act. Comparative reasoning and jurisprudential references were used to highlight overlaps and divergences. Results: Findings suggest that: • Medical negligence is primarily a breach of duty of care under contract law, adjudicated by courts. • Breach of ethics is professional misconduct, adjudicated by medical councils, and does not necessarily involve patient harm. • Ethical codes often serve as benchmarks for defining “reasonable care” in negligence cases, creating overlap. • The shift from fiduciary trust to contractual consent has diluted the moral component of medical practice, but ethics remains essential to preserve professional integrity. Conclusion: While medical negligence and ethical misconduct are distinct, ethics provides the normative standards against which negligence is judged. Invoking ethics in negligence adjudication is not about conflating domains, but about ensuring that contractual medicine does not lose its fiduciary essence. Courts and councils thus operate in parallel, with ethics guiding standards and law enforcing liability.

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