There are several branches of ethics. Clinical ethics, the one closest
to medical decisionmaking, can be seen as a branch of medicine itself
. In this view, clinical ethics is a unitary hermeneutics. Its rule is
a guideline for unifying other theories of ethics in conjunction with
the clinical context. Put another way, clinical ethics interprets the
clinical situation in light of a balance of other values that, while
guiding the decisionmaking process, also contributes to the very weigh
ting of those values. The case itself originates ideas, not only about
which value ought to predominate in its resolution, but also provides
the origin of clinical rules that can be used in other cases. These a
re interpretive rules. Some examples of these rules are presented as w
ell.