scholarly journals Current ethical issues for African psychiatry

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-19
Author(s):  
Tuviah Zabow
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Psychiatric Research ◽  
Multicultural Community ◽  
The World ◽  
Right To Refuse Treatment ◽  
Involuntary Hospitalisation ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ethics In Psychiatry

One of the challenges of medical practice is to resolve the conflicts that arise when a professional is required to choose between competing ethical principles. This is especially true in psychiatry. The answers to ethical issues are not necessarily right or wrong. Ethics in psychiatry is complex, and numerous dilemmas may confuse the picture. Clinicians and researchers bring their own values to the scenario, but they must also deal with the values of their colleagues and their patients, as well as those of the wider (multicultural) community. These conflicts traditionally concern confidentiality, informed consent, involuntary hospitalisation, the right to treatment, the right to refuse treatment and the regulation of psychiatric research, among others. These are universally encountered but present differently across the regions of the world.

scholarly journals Informed Consent for Dental Treatment: A Survey on Dental Practitioners’ Perception, Awareness and Understanding

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-35
Author(s):  
MAI Khan ◽  
A Taleb
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Dental Treatment ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
Ethical Reason ◽  
Dental Clinics ◽  
Dental Practitioners ◽  
Right To Refuse Treatment ◽  
The Right ◽  
Almost All

A survey was conducted on dental surgeons’ perception of ethics concerning informed consent. Forty-six dentists employed in different private and government dental colleges and private dental clinics, responded to a questionnaire, which contained ten questions related to the ethics of informed consent. The Study revealed that the dentists were aware of legal and ethical issues related to informed consent, and majority of them relied on verbal consent (82.6%) rather than a written consent for any form of treatment. All the dentists (100%) agreed to the importance of informed consent for patients, and almost all the participants (97%) agreed that patients hold the right to refuse treatment or take legal action if they were not informed properly, although 19% of the participants did not consider failure in obtaining informed consent as an offence. Sixty-three percent of the participants did not agree to the notion that a written consent would make dentistry difficult while the remaining 37% feared that dentistry would be difficult if written consent was made mandatory. The survey also revealed that participants were keen to learn more about principles of medical ethics and felt ethics be taught more elaborately in the undergraduate level. In conclusion it was suggested that dentists should obtain a written consent for ethical reason or legal safeguard or at least keep a written account of the type of consent given by the patient.DOI: http://doi.dx.org/10.3329/bjdre.v2i2.16241 Bangladesh Journal of Dental Research & Education Vol.2(2) 2012: 31-35

Patients Who Refuse Treatment

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica W. Berg ◽  
Paul S. Appelbaum ◽  
Charles W. Lidz ◽  
Lisa S. Parker
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Informed Choice ◽  
Sufficient Information ◽  
The Status ◽  
Distorted Version ◽  
The Law ◽  
Right To Refuse Treatment ◽  
The Right ◽  
Right To Refuse

From its inception, the law of informed consent has been based on two premises: first, that a patient has the right to receive sufficient information to make an informed choice about the treatment recommended; and second, that the patient may choose to accept or to decline the physician’s recommendation. The legitimacy of this second premise should be underscored because it is too often belied by the everyday language of medical practice. Getting a consent is medical jargon that implies that patient agreement is the only acceptable outcome. Indeed, the term informed consent itself suggests that patients are expected to agree to be treated rather than to decline treatment. Unless patients are viewed as having the right to say no, as well as yes, and even yes with conditions, much of the rationale for informed consent evaporates. Nonetheless, the medical profession’s reaction to patients who refuse treatment often has been less than optimal. The right to refuse treatment is frequently ignored in practice because it is inconsistent with the history and ethos of medicine (1,2). Physicians are trained to treat illness and to prolong life; situations in which they cannot do either—not because of limitations of knowledge or technology, but because patients or third parties reject their recommendations for care—evoke profound feelings of frustration and even anger. It would not be too much to suggest that these confrontations challenge an essential element of the medical identity. Physicians’ reactions to these situations are varied. Some will contend with patients over their refusal, while others, having assimilated a distorted version of patients’ right to refuse treatment, may too quickly abandon their patients to the consequences of their choices, thereby depriving them of the guidance for which patients traditionally have turned to their physicians. Regardless of the quality of care offered to patients or the degree of concern of those who treat them, some patients will have reasons of their own to decline treatment. Before considering how clinicians might respond to these situations, this chapter reviews the status of the law regarding treatment refusal, surveying a legal landscape that has seen dramatic changes in the last decade.

scholarly journals La conservazione del materiale biologico finalizzato alla ricerca scientifica: questioni giuridiche e riflessioni etiche sulle biobanche

2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Ferioli ◽  
Mario Picozzi
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Biomedical Data ◽  
Collective Interest ◽  
The Right To Privacy ◽  
Technical Requirements ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
New Treatments

La richiesta di istituire biobanche oggi diventa sempre più impellente. Una biobanca è una struttura dove si raccolgono per un tempo lungo materiale biologico e dati di natura biomedica correlati al campione, che può provenire sia da pazienti che da cittadini. Da un lato si riconosce il ruolo che le biobanche possono avere sia nell’acquisire nuove conoscenze sia nel favorire nuovi trattamenti di diagnosi e cura, dall’altro è necessario riflettere sulle delicate e complesse questioni giuridiche ed etiche ad esse sottese. Il presente contributo, dopo aver fatto chiarezza sulla definizione e sui requisiti tecnici necessari per l’istituzione di una biobanca, si sofferma ad analizzare le principali questioni etico-giuridiche: a chi appartiene il tessuto e chi beneficia dei risultati ottenuti? Quale consenso informato è adeguato per protocolli sperimentali non prevedibili al momento del prelievo del tessuto? Come può essere garantita la riservatezza dei dati, anche in funzione dell’analisi genetica? Gli argomenti vengono analizzati a partire dalla letteratura internazionale, mostrando le diverse posizioni. In tema di proprietà del tessuto e di proprietà intellettuale dei risultati si evidenzia come sta emergendo una concezione solidaristica, in cui materiale e informazioni sono da considerarsi risorse a disposizione dell’intera collettività, che ne affida alla biobanca la gestione. Il modello di consenso informato che sembra prevalere è quello definito “ampliato”, di cui si evidenziano pregi e difetti, nell’ottica di un bilanciamento tra autonomia del soggetto, interesse della collettività ed esigenze della ricerca. La questione della riservatezza impone di riflettere sia sul diritto alla privacy sia sulla possibilità di utilizzo del dato per finalità di ricerca. Data la complessità delle questioni emerse, si ritiene che necessariamente la fiducia del paziente/cittadino verso la comunità scientifica giochi un ruolo fondamentale. Il Comitato di etica, a cui vanno assicurate competenze e risorse adeguate, diventa lo strumento di garanzia indispensabile per una gestione eticamente accettabile della biobanca. ---------- Today the request to create biobanks is more and more urgent. A biobank is a structure where biological specimens and related biomedical data, obtained from patients and/or citizens , are stored over time. On one hand, we acknowledge the role that biobanks may have in acquiring new knowledge and fostering new treatments for diagnosis and therapy, on the other we need to reflect upon the delicate and complex legal and ethical issues that biobanks rise. This paper, after defining the concept of biobank and the technical requirements needed to establish one, analyzes some major ethical and legal issues: Who owns the tissues and who can benefit from potential results? Which kind of informed consent is the most appropriate for experimental protocols not yet predictable at the time of tissue collection? How can data confidentiality be guaranteed also in relation to genetic analysis? The topics are analyzed with reference to the international literature, comparing different perspectives. Regarding the ownership of biological samples and the intellectual property rights of the potential research outputs based on the data, the recent literature introduces a new concept of solidarity which consider all samples and information at full disposal of the entire community and which indicates the biobank as the manager of the archive. The model of “broad” informed consent seems to prevail: we indicate its points of strength and weakness, considering a necessary balance among the individual autonomy, the collective interest and the research requirements. Finally, regarding the confidentiality of all data, we need to reflect upon the right to privacy along with the possibility to use the available data for research purpose. Considering the complexity of these issues, we believe that the patient’s trust towards the scientific community is the main matter. The Ethics Committee, to whom adequate resources and expertise must be granted, becomes the assurer entity for an ethically acceptable management of a biobank.

Consent and the Right to Refuse Treatment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Veatch ◽  
Amy Haddad ◽  
E. J. Last
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Care Practice ◽  
Health Care Practice ◽  
Reasonable Person ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Reasonable Person Standard ◽  
Right To Refuse Treatment ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
The Right ◽  
Subjective Standard

This chapter is concerned with one of the major ethical issues in contemporary health care practice: informed or valid consent. The chapter defines the elements of informed consent—that is, the types of information that need to be transmitted for consent to be adequately informed. The second section looks at cases involving questions of the standards of consent, referring to the question of what standard of reference should be used in determining whether a sufficient amount of a particular type of information has been transmitted: the professional standard, the reasonable person standard, or the subjective standard. The third section examines questions of whether the information transmitted is comprehended and whether the consent is adequately voluntary. Finally, the fourth section addresses whether incompetent patients can be expected to consent and what role parents, guardians, and other surrogates can play in giving approval for medical treatments for those who are legally incompetent to do so themselves.

scholarly journals Problemas en la relación médico-enfermo y ética de las virtudes como propuesta de solución

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Vilarroig Martín
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
World Health ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Cardinal Virtues ◽  
Theological Virtues ◽  
The World ◽  
Right To Information ◽  
The Right ◽  
Kant's Ethics

L’articolo si compone di due parti. La prima si occupa di alcune importanti questioni concernenti la relazione medico-paziente, quali il diritto all’informazione, il consenso informato, le direttive anticipate, il diritto alla riservatezza, l’obiezione di coscienza e così via. Tutti questi argomenti vengono discussi alla luce della relazione medico-paziente e viene mostrato come siano tutti accomunati da mancanza di fiducia. La seconda parte mette in evidenza come recuperare questa fiducia attraverso l’etica della virtù (in contrapposizione all’etica dei doveri di Kant o l’utilitarismo etico di Stuart Mill). A titolo esemplificativo, viene proposta la soluzione dei problemi delineati nella prima parte, mostrando alcune particolari virtù mediche. Come esempio, viene proposta la soluzione dei problemi delineati nella prima parte, mostrando alcune particolari virtù mediche. Viene poi proposto un adattamento delle virtù cardinali della Organizzazione della Sanità (prudenza, giustizia, fortezza, temperanza) e si discutono le virtù cardinali del medico proposte da Beauchamp e Childress (compassione, intuizione, affidabilità e integrità) con una proposta di approfondimento. Infine, si tenta una lettura antropologica delle virtù teologiche (fede, speranza e carità) applicate al mondo medico. ---------- This article has two parts. The first deals with some important issues about the doctor-patient relationship, such as the right to information, informed consent, advance directives, the right to confidentiality, conscientious objection, and so on. It shows how they all appear in the doctor-patient relationship, and how they all indicate a lack of confidence as a common origin. The second part deals with how to recover this lost confidence through ethics of virtue (versus Kant’s ethics of duties, or Stuart Mill’s utilitarian ethics). As an example, we propose the solution of the problems outlined in the first part, showing some particular medical virtues. We propose an adaptation of the World Health cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance), and we discuss the physician’s cardinal virtues proposed by Beauchamp and Childress (compassion, insight, trustworthiness and integrity) adding a proposal to investigate in this way. Finally, it attempts an anthropological reading of the theological virtues (faith, hope and charity) applied to the medical world.

scholarly journals Indigenous Peoples’ Interaction with External World: The Principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-128
Author(s):  
Pavel Parshin
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Nature Management ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Special Rights ◽  
Practical Implications

Indigenous peoples are inheritors of earlier population of their present day territories of modern states, committed to their land and traditional way of life. The world community for many decades proceeds along the path of recognition the rights of indigenous peoples, the main of which, in the author’s opinion, is the right to choose the degree and form of their integration in the modern society. Historically, the attitude towards indigenous peoples’ rights developed from recognition of their right “to be as other peoples are” to the consent to their right to be different an original. One of the main tenet ensuring the realization of their right to originality, which has important practical implications, is the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of indigenous peoples to affecting them economic and cultural activities of their dominant neighbors, as well as to more particular (including special) rights and implementation procedures resulting from them. In economic terms, it primarily concerns nature management and, especially, extraction of natural fossil and usage of biological resources, military activities, and waste disposal. The article analyzes the history of ideas about the of indigenous peoples’ rights and their legal fixation, as well as problems of interpretation of the principle of free, prior and informed consent and its implementation in various regions of the world and spheres of activity.

Interesting Facts on ENT Organs

2020 ◽  
pp. 64-67
Author(s):  
Natalia Sakhno
Keyword(s):  
Medical Practice ◽  
Sense Organ ◽  
World Music ◽  
The World ◽  
Hearing Organ ◽  
Important Sense ◽  
Nose Diseases ◽  
Surrounding Space ◽  
The Right

Hearing is the second most important sense organ after vision. The hearing organ enables cognition, communication with others and perception of the beauty – to hear the singing of birds and the sound of rain, to get acquainted with the street musicians’ performances and enjoy the world music masterpieces. Hearing helps us navigate the surrounding space and warns us of danger. There are many interesting facts on this sense organ in the world. For example, in some insects, such as crickets and grasshoppers, the hearing organs are located on the front legs; elephants have the ability to perceive sounds not only with their ears but also with their trunk and columnar legs – this is how they learn about the approach of an enemy or a herd of relatives. Human ears can grow throughout life, and the right ear is “exploited” four times more often than the left. The laryngoscope, a special tool for examining the larynx, was not invented by an ENT doctor but by a musician, Manuel Garcia, even though it was first used thanks to a doctor and scientist from Budapest, Jan Cermak, in medical practice. It is him who is regarded as the founder of modern otorhinolaryngology, the science that studies the ear, throat and nose diseases.

scholarly journals No Means No, Or Does It? A Comparative Study of the Right to Refuse Treatment in a Psychiatric Institution

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-172
Author(s):  
Mehgan Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Institutional Setting ◽  
Mental Disabilities ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Psychiatric Institution ◽  
The World ◽  
Behavioral Therapies ◽  
Right To Refuse Treatment ◽  
The Right ◽  
Right To Refuse

AbstractAround the world, people with mental disabilities are subject to many types of behavioral therapies against their will, including medications and restraints. This is especially true of people who are institutionalized. These intrusions are in violation of fundamental international human rights principles. People with mental disabilities are often stripped of many of their basic rights, including the right to determine what is done to their bodies. This article compares the prevailing law on the right to refuse treatment for people with mental disabilities in an institutional setting in three different nations on three continents, specifically in the United States, Kenya, and Brazil.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document