The patient in intensive care unit: bioethics considerations

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reflect on some dimensions of the assistance to patients in Intensive Care Unit (ICU), looking for some theoretical subsidies in bioethics considering the principles of justice, autonomy and beneficence, the rights of the critically ill, and the humanization of attendance. It is timely to discuss the perspectives that involve caring in the intensive care unit, searching to surmount the view that reduces the patients to biological patterns, incorporating life in all of its complexity and completeness.