ETHICS IN HEALTHCARE SCIENCE

Ethics in Healthcare Science

Ethics in Healthcare Science

Introduction

An international group of scientists specializing in bioethics McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health in Toronto (MRC) has identified a set of ethical, social and cultural rights that threatens to slow medical research "critical" in developing countries should answer these questions.

The study also involved the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and has received support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its conclusions are published in the journal PLoS Medicine. (Güldal & Semin, 2000, 585-95)

According to one of its promoters, Dr. Peter Singer, the study's goal is "to anticipate what problems may face research projects in developing countries and try to warn them not to hinder scientific development." According to Singer, "there is increasing reports of scientific projects in these countries who are facing ethical, cultural and social ". Singer stressed that science" must go hand in hand with ethics "as a way to avoid the problems affecting the development of critical research.

The authors have been able to identify 13 areas of concern for major science programs. Thus, the top five are: to involve the community, involving the public in general, cultural acceptance, discrimination against women and the obligation to share the fruits of research to the subjects investigated. The following are five concerns cooperation (North-South and South-South), the role of civil society organizations, that new technologies are affordable, easy access to facilities and regulations. (Jordan, 1998, 576-94)

The final group of concerns identified by the experts is the collection, processing and storage of human tissues, corruption and bad governance and the anticipation of undesirable consequences, as the effects of genetically modified organisms.

History and Development of Healthcare Ethics

Current HECs are derived and expanded from decision-making groups from the past. In the 1950s, some Catholic hospitals formed “medico-moral” committees, to ensure that Catholic teaching on such matters as contraception, sterilization, and abortion were followed. (Turkle, 1997, 72-84)

In the 1960s, some pioneering hospitals developed committees to choose which patients ought to receive experimental dialysis, treatment with an artificial kidney for kidney failure. Shana Alexander's article in Life magazine in 1962 describes a typical meeting of the Seattle Artificial Kidney Committee, comprised of a lawyer, a minister, a banker, a housewife, an official of state government, a labor leader, and a surgeon. The article, titled “They Decide Who Lives, Who Dies,” describes a re-creation of the discussion about which of several patients ought to receive life-saving dialysis. The members discussed such topics as the patients' education, employment status, financial status, marital status, how often they went to church, etc. Some have called this type of committee the “God Squad,” having the power to choose who would live or die, and many believe the social criteria that were addressed by this committee were unfair and inadequate. Nevertheless, this article highlighted the need for the development of decision-making bodies that could reflect on the ethical problems posed by new technologies, and that such committees ought to have wide representation. (Turkle, 1994, 158-167)

In 1975, pediatrician Karen Teel suggested that ...