[Ethics and health. Challenges and reflections]

In this essay, the concepts of ethics, bioethics, and professional ethics are reviewed. In addition, we analyzed the relationship between ethics and medicine, the conditions that can be source of ethical dilemmas, and the influence of ethics in the doctor-patient relationship, in the clinical work of the physician, and in an individual and institutional process of decision-making. Some factors that result from the interrelationship between ethics and health care, in particular the need for preserving and increasing the human dimension in medical practice, are discussed. Finally, the idea is supported that to achieve the purpose previously mentioned, three challenges must to be overcome: to defeat reductionism in analysis of medical matters, to accept the uncertainty of medical work and the attempt to reach adequate levels of equity in the development of health services.