The Historical Foundation of the SDMS Code of Ethics

Abstract

Sonographers are a part of a complex health care system in the United States. Since health care’s earliest days millennia ago, those outside and inside health care have seen the need to have a code of ethics to protect the public and enhance the efficacy of health care. This article gives a brief history of medical ethics and its four pillar principles: beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. The American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers provided the impetus for a sonography coalition, composed of several related organizations, to develop a code of ethics for the new profession. The board of directors of the Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (SDMS) adopted it without modifications in 1995. Currently, the SDMS board is reevaluating and considering modifications to the current document. The SDMS Code of Ethics is a statement of the moral and ethical principles on which sonography practice is based.