Climate change and the different roles of physicians: a critical response to "A Planetary Health Pledge for Health Professionals in the Anthropocene"

The article critically responds to "A Planetary Health Pledge for Health Professionals in the Anthropocene" which was published by Wabnitz et al. in The Lancet in November 2020. It focuses on the different roles and responsibilities of a physician. The pledge is criticised because it neglects the different roles, gives no answers in case of conflicting goals, and contains numerous inconsistencies. The relationship between the Planetary Health Pledge and the Declaration of Geneva is examined. It is argued that the Planetary Health Pledge should have supplemented the Declaration of Geneva instead of changing it.

Physician outreach during a pandemic: shared or collective responsibility?

In ‘Ethics of sharing medical knowledge with the community: is the physician responsible for medical outreach during a pandemic?’ Strous and Karni note that the revised physician’s pledge in the World Medical Association Declaration of Geneva obligates individual physicians to share medical knowledge, which they interpret to mean a requirement to share knowledge publicly and through outreach. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Strous and Karni defend a form of medical paternalism insofar as the individual physician must reach out to communities who may not want, or know to seek out, medical advice, for reasons of public health and health equity. Strous and Karni offer a novel defence of why physicians ought to intervene even in insular communities, and they offer suggestions for how this could be done in culturally sensitive ways. Yet their view rests on an unfounded interpretation of the Geneva Declaration language. More problematically, their paper confuses shared and collective responsibility, misattributing the scope of individual physician obligations in potentially harmful ways. In response, this reply delineates between shared and collective responsibility, and suggests that to defend the obligation of medical outreach Strous and Karni propose, it is better conceptualised as a collective responsibility of the medical profession, rather than a shared responsibility of individual physicians. This interpretation rejects paternalism on the part of individual providers in favour of a more sensitive and collaborative practice of knowledge sharing between physicians and communities, and in the service of collective responsibility.

Professional Secrecy And Privileged Communication In Medical Practice

A medical professional has the faith and confidence of society in him/her. It is his utmost duty and responsibility to uphold the ethical standards of confidentiality, set forth in the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva, the International Code of Medical Ethics and the World Health Organization. Communication between the physician and his patient is privileged. This information can only be divulged, in part, under special circumstances.

The Physicians’ Oath through the Eyes of the Bulgarian Medical Students: Empirical Survey

Background Upon graduation physicians in Bulgaria are required by law to take the Hippocratic Oath and its’ different adapted variants are used in the medical schools. The goal of this survey was to investigate medical students’ in 4th, 5th and 6th year of their undergraduate training perception and preferences about the two versions: the adapted Hippocratic Oath currently used in one medical school (Version-1) and the newly-revised Declaration of Geneva “The Physician’s Pledge”, 2017 (Version-2). Methods An empirical survey was carried out, using direct individual self-administered questionnaire from February to April 2018. Students’ lists of total 239 medical students provided by the institution’s authority were used. 183 students responded (total response rate of 76.57%). Methods of descriptive and analytical statistics were used based on the nature of the data: relative frequency distributions, Pearson Chi-Square nonparametric test for hypothesis assessment – statistical significance was set at p<0.05. Results In a closed response binominal question force choice format respondents gave higher preference as overall perception to Version-1 (61.7%) and there were not statistically significant differences according to their basic socio-demographic characteristics (Pearson Chi-Square test - p> 0.05 for all hypotheses). The ranking of the clauses of the preferred version considered to be decisive indicated the highest preference to the wording in the two versions referring to the field of professional relationships in doctor-patient sphere: the doctor’s obligation to always be ready to provide medical care from the Version-1 (54.5%) and the nondiscrimination about the Version-2 (41.4%). In the particular aspect of the relations between teachers, students and colleges and the respect for human life, preferences were rather pointing to the wordings of the Version-2: respectively 54.4% and 63.2% of respondents and in the area of doctor-patient relationships greater preference was given to the wording of the Version-1: 59.3% of respondents. Conclusions The current survey was inspired by the latest revision of the Declaration of Geneva. There are the position expressed by the students towards both Oath versions as a bond between tradition and reality. Our finding could serve for further discussions regarding the Bulgarian practice of administering the Physicians’ Oath.

THE PROBLEMS OF HUMAN DIGNITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CONTEXT OF BIOETHICS

The article presents an analysis of the principles of human dignity and human rights from the viewpoint of bioethics, describes the development and modifications of the concepts of “human dignity” and “human rights” in different historical stages. The main purpose of the article’s detailed observation is a complete and true perception of the problems of human dignity and human rights in the contemporary globalized world. To implement the above-mentioned aim, the paper deals with different international conventions and declarations: Convention for the Protection of Human and Dignity of the human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention of Human Rights and Biomedicine, European Convention on Human Rights, Human Rights and Biomedicine: The Oviedo Convention and its Protocols, The Nuremberg Code, The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, WMA Declaration of Geneva, WMA Declaration of Helsinki and WMA Declaration of Lisbon on the rights of the patient.

Physical Activity Is an Opportunity for the Health of Nations: What Should We Do Next?

Physical activity provides huge opportunities for the health of nations. Understanding this, the World Health Organization has published a Global Action Plan which aims to provide member states with a framework for action, namely to create active societies, people, environments and systems. The target is set at a 15 % reduction in physical inactivity levels by 2030. We explore in this paper some of the challenges and opportunities that come with it, and give the practitioner some real-world opportunities for relevant action at the local level, as well as for their patients, staying true to the Physician’s Pledge (Declaration of Geneva): “I will attend to my own health, well-being, and abilities in order to provide care of the highest standard.”