Biomedical ethics as an integral part of the physician’s outlook

2018 ◽  
Vol 0 (5.92) ◽  
pp. 22-24
Author(s):  
Yu.Yu. Kobeliatskyi ◽  
T.V. Kanchura ◽  
Ye.V. Petrashenok
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Anna Koval ◽  

he end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twentyfirst century has begun the rapid development of scientific researches in the biological and medical fields. This process is associated with using of fundamentally new methods, which are primarily aimed at the disease prevention, as well as the introduction into the treatment of human diseases with the latest scientific and innovative technologies, methods and techniques of their application. These opportunities in the development of scientific technologies in the field of biology and medicine have led to the emergence of such a direction of scientific activity as "biotechnology". The proposed article notes that using of biomedical technologies has caused a number of new problems in the field of law and ethics. Legal arrangement in the field of the health protection have become much more complicated. Thanks to new opportunities, today these relations regulate rights and responsibilities of a fairly large number of people. Modern relations in the field of medical services and medical care lead to the emergence of new approaches to their regulation by both legal and ethical norms. In the past, relations in the field of the health protection were usually between two subjects, a doctor and a healthcare consumer. Nowadays, in a medical practice, relations in the field of the health protection involve: a health-care consumer, his family members (e.g., in the case of hereditary diseases diagnosis, blood and organ donation etc.) and third parties (e.g., organ donation, reproductive cell donation, surrogacy etc.). In the general doctrinal concept, biotechnology is the industrial use of living organisms or their parts (microorganisms, fungi, algae, plant and animal cells, cellular organs, enzymes etc.) for product producing or modifying, improving plants and animals, and in medical practice - in relation of the individual human organs (or body as a whole) functioning. These circumstances require improving the legal regulation of modern medicine public relations, bringing them into line with emerging realities. Moreover, the specifics of relations in this field determines the specifics of their legal regulation. The application of new medical technologiesin relation to human treatment has given rise to a significant number of moral and ethical problems that could not be solved within the framework of medical ethics and deontology alone. In connection with this, the way out of the current situation could be the consolidation of bioethics as an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, as a science, which makes it possible to explain moral, ethical and legal aspects of the medicine. This, for example, determines the allocation of medical law in an independent branch of law in some Western countries and Ukraine. The article focuses on biomedical ethics, which is a component of the medical activities system regulation. In the context of considering the levels of social regulation of medical activities, bioethics (biomedical ethics) is an interdisciplinary science that studies moral and ethical, social and legal problems of medical activities in the context of human rights protection. Bioethics should create a set of moral principles, norms and rules that are binding on all mankind and delineate the limits of scientific interference in the nature of the human body, the transition through which is unacceptable.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 234-237
Author(s):  
Stacy A. Drake ◽  
Erica T. Yu

Researchers often have a need to conduct human tissue research using postmortem specimens. Medicolegal death investigation organizations are untapped areas for obtaining postmortem human tissues. Because death investigation organizations are not required by law to conduct or support research, an ethical dilemma exists in whether or not researchers should use cadaver tissues for research purposes. This paper analyzes the ethical issues of using human tissues through discussion of principles of biomedical ethics, respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice. Policy makers, organ and tissue procurement organizations, medicolegal death investigation organizations, and scientists should be aware of these principles when considering researchers requests. The authors conclude that with Institutional Review Board approval and next of kin consent, there are prevailing reasons for using postmortem tissue for research.


Author(s):  
John Basl

According to the ethic of life, all living organisms are of special moral importance. Living things, unlike simple artifacts or biological collectives, are not mere things whose value is entirely instrumental. This book articulates why the ethic is immune to most of the standard criticisms raised against it, but also why such an ethic is untenable, why the domain of moral concern does not extend to all living things; it argues for an old conclusion in an entirely new way. To see why the ethic must be abandoned requires that we look carefully at the foundations of the ethic—the ways in which it is tightly connected to issues in the philosophy of biology and the sorts of assumptions it must draw on to distinguish the living from the nonliving. This book draws on resources from a variety of branches of philosophy and the sciences to show that the ethic cannot survive this scrutiny, and it articulates what the death of the ethic of life means in a variety of areas of practical concern, including environmental ethics, biomedical ethics, ethics of technology, and in philosophy more generally.


Author(s):  
David B. Resnik

This chapter provides an overview of the ethics of environmental health, and it introduces five chapters in the related section of The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics. A wide range of ethical issues arises in managing the relationship between human health and the environment, including regulation of toxic substances, air and water pollution, waste management, agriculture, the built environment, occupational health, energy production and use, environmental justice, population control, and climate change. The values at stake in environmental health ethics include those usually mentioned in ethical debates in biomedicine and public health, such as autonomy, social utility, and justice, as well as values that address environmental concerns, such as animal welfare, stewardship of biological resources, and sustainability. Environmental health ethics, therefore, stands at the crossroads of several disciplines, including public health ethics, environmental ethics, biomedical ethics, and business ethics.


AI & Society ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milad Mirbabaie ◽  
Lennart Hofeditz ◽  
Nicholas R. J. Frick ◽  
Stefan Stieglitz

AbstractThe application of artificial intelligence (AI) in hospitals yields many advantages but also confronts healthcare with ethical questions and challenges. While various disciplines have conducted specific research on the ethical considerations of AI in hospitals, the literature still requires a holistic overview. By conducting a systematic discourse approach highlighted by expert interviews with healthcare specialists, we identified the status quo of interdisciplinary research in academia on ethical considerations and dimensions of AI in hospitals. We found 15 fundamental manuscripts by constructing a citation network for the ethical discourse, and we extracted actionable principles and their relationships. We provide an agenda to guide academia, framed under the principles of biomedical ethics. We provide an understanding of the current ethical discourse of AI in clinical environments, identify where further research is pressingly needed, and discuss additional research questions that should be addressed. We also guide practitioners to acknowledge AI-related benefits in hospitals and to understand the related ethical concerns.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 205031212110009
Author(s):  
Melahat Akdeniz ◽  
Bülent Yardımcı ◽  
Ethem Kavukcu

The goal of end-of-life care for dying patients is to prevent or relieve suffering as much as possible while respecting the patients’ desires. However, physicians face many ethical challenges in end-of-life care. Since the decisions to be made may concern patients’ family members and society as well as the patients, it is important to protect the rights, dignity, and vigor of all parties involved in the clinical ethical decision-making process. Understanding the principles underlying biomedical ethics is important for physicians to solve the problems they face in end-of-life care. The main situations that create ethical difficulties for healthcare professionals are the decisions regarding resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition and hydration, terminal sedation, withholding and withdrawing treatments, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. Five ethical principles guide healthcare professionals in the management of these situations.


Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Meta Rus ◽  
Urh Groselj

Although vaccination is recognised as the top public health achievement of the twentieth century, unequivocal consensus about its beneficence does not exist among the general population. In countries with well-established immunisation programmes, vaccines are “victims of their own success”, because low incidences of diseases now prevented with vaccines diminished the experience of their historical burdens. Increasing number of vaccine-hesitant people in recent years threatens, or even effectively disables, herd immunity levels of the population and results in outbreaks of previously already controlled diseases. We aimed to apply a framework for ethical analysis of vaccination in childhood based on the four principles of biomedical ethics (respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice) to provide a comprehensive and applicable model on how to address the ethical aspects of vaccination at both individual and societal levels. We suggest finding an “ethical equilibrium”, which means that the degree of respect for parents’ autonomy is not constant, but variable; it shall depend on the level of established herd immunity and it is specific for every society. When the moral obligation of individuals to contribute to herd immunity is not fulfilled, mandatory vaccination policies are ethically justified, because states bear responsibility to protect herd immunity as a common good.


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