Non-maleficence requires clinicians to:

• A. Maximize patient safety by any means
• B. Minimize risk and avoid harm while weighing benefits
• C. Ignore patient preferences if dangerous
• D. Focus solely on legal compliance

Answer: (B)

Non-maleficence is about avoiding harm and taking care to minimize risk in patient care. It recognizes that every intervention carries some chance of harm, so the clinician’s duty is to choose actions that reduce potential harm while still offering reasonable benefits. This requires weighing the risks and potential benefits of a treatment or procedure and selecting the option with the best net outcome for the patient, using the safest effective approach available and preventing complications wherever possible. It also means respecting patient values and preferences when feasible, and not pursuing actions that would cause unnecessary harm.

Thus, the idea of minimizing risk and avoiding harm while weighing benefits best captures this balance. It’s not about pursuing safety at all costs without regard to real-world feasibility, nor about ignoring patient preferences or reducing ethical duty to simply following the law.