While there are no doubt ethical principles and concepts that extend across all aspects of bioethics, it is now becoming common to find separate treatments of specialty fields emerging in the bioethics literature and in clinical ethics areas of specialization. In most academic fields and interdisciplinary areas of study, it is not uncommon to find scholars and practitioners focusing on developing particular areas of specialty. What is fairly unique about bioethics, however, is that we find that its speciality areas are not just reconceiving central disciplinary questions or using different ways of looking at issues but are bringing to light the importance of examining the ethical issues specific to their areas of clinical and research practice.

It will always be the case that considerations such as informed consent, confidentiality, minimizing harm, and priority setting, among other considerations, will be central ethical issues that clinicians will confront in all areas of practice. Nevertheless, the development and study of various speciality fields of bioethics places us in a better position to be able to give a more nuanced and pertinent analysis of the distinctive ethical issues faced by particular clinical areas of practice, especially where the traditional application of overarching ethical theory or bioethical methodologies may have been found to be limiting.

The chapters in this section provide an overview of the most pressing and relevant ethical issues unique to their clinical speciality.