Reconciling Medical Ethics and Entrepreneurship: Convergence and Divergence Debates

Medical ethics is concerned with moral and ethical values that guide medical practice, research and policies to ensure the attainment of health goals. It revolves round moral values that must be strictly followed in the process of providing quality care to patients. Entrepreneurship, on the other hand, is concerned with engaging in business with the primary aim of making profit. Medical entrepreneurship is thus described as the investment in the business of health. The ultimate aim of the medical entrepreneur is to render quality care to patients as well as make profit for its stakeholders. Unfortunately, the medical entrepreneur is faced with the herculean task of concomitantly satisfying both the patients and its stakeholders due to the conflicting factors surrounding the two. In fact, there is growing tension among patients, healthcare providers and these medical entrepreneurs due to the many unclarified matters around the business of health. This chapter identifies the problems with healthcare financing and the convergence and divergence between medical ethics and entrepreneurship. Our review showed that convergence and divergence exist in the goal of the stakeholders, quality service delivery, employment of health professionals, charging of fees, care accessibility, management of limited resources, standardizing medical practice, extent to which the use of technology is allowed and community-based research. This review highlights the key factors that should be considered by medical entrepreneurs when making investments in health in this digital era. It also underscores the pivotal role of medical ethics in the determination of where to invest in health.