Moral Distress and Dilemmas Faced by Health Care Workers During Screening, Treating, and Rehabilitating Women with Gynecological Cancer: A Narrative Review from a Bioethics Consortium

Gynecological cancer, encompassing a range of malignancies affecting female genital tract is today an important ailment affecting women on a global scale. Gynecological cancer presents a variety of challenging ethical issues for oncologists involved in screening, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation, particularly for professionals and individuals untrained in medical ethics. The study group has been engaged in the documentation and evaluation of the severity of diverse specialty ethical concerns and their implications for healthcare professionals for the past ten years. We have previously documented the ethical concerns that oncologists and medical specialists in India who are responsible for the treatment of cancer patients have. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the various challenges faced by oncologists in screening, diagnosing, treating, and rehabilitating women with gynecological cancer, with a specific emphasis on the traditional context of India. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive presentation of these matters and a humble effort to document an exceedingly critical yet overlooked facet of cancer treatment. The authors hope that their efforts will contribute to the education of future health care professionals regarding the effective management of these issues. Graphical abstract: (Figure presented.)