[Contributions of ethics to the practice of intensive care]

Intensive care, one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine, is not without its problems. In what sense could ethics contribute towards an intensive care medicine which would be humane and respectful of what it means to be sick? After having presented a phenomenology of what it means to be sick and in intensive care, the author proposes an ethical framework which could guide the decision-making of physicians specialized in the field. This framework has three levels. Level one deals with the basic values of benevolence and autonomy which are those of medicine itself. Level two deals with the implementation of these values, which bioethics sees as conflicting. Implementation is achieved by "conversation" between the physician and the patient. Finally, the physician is invited to question his or her own attitude towards the unavoidable dilemmas created by the paradoxes and contradictions of modern medicine.