What is the place of bioethics in the field of medicine today?
With claims of subjective morality circulating rapidly throughout out culture, can there ever be a defined set of moral principles to protect the dignity of both doctors and patients, not to mention secure the public's trust in their medical institutions? In classrooms, in textbooks, in the news, lie conflicting philosophies on how to address these issues. After taking a biomedical science course and learning the financial constraints of hospitals and doctors' offices, I am concerned that the bottom line increasingly becomes the motive for medical care, especially with treatment costs on the rise. How can colleges and universities reorient students as they pursue sufficient financial compensation and moral satisfaction within their chosen majors? How will schools help redirect the focus of our medical institutions to the value of human life?
#medicine #bioethics
5 answers
Carol’s Answer
Michael;
I have not recruited for professors in this area but I do know of this individual Dr. Paul Wolpe. He has studied and teaches at Emory on this very subject. His title at Emory is Director, Center for Ethics.
Hope this helps.
Carol
Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. - Emory Center for Ethics - Emory University
Dr. Wolpe publishes in the fields of sociology, medicine, and bioethics, and has contributed to a variety of encyclopedias on bioethical issues. A futurist interested in social dynamics, Dr. Wolpe's work focuses on the social, religious, ethical, and ideological impact of medicine and technology on the human condition.
Alexander’s Answer
Subjective morality is basically one deciding their own morality. This is all fun and games until another person is involved, one person's freedom/right ends where another person's start. This simply means that in your personal life you can decide what you do and don't do but in medical practice there are a set of ethics, rules and guidelines which you must follow because you are treating another person. These are basically derived from the natural law and the inalienable rights of all humans. Medical ethics can be summarized into three words: Autonomy (Patient decides), Benevolence (always do good) and Nonmaleficence (Never do harm). These are based on and backed by justice which simply means to give each person their rightful due.
Financial compensation is not part of medical ethics but you cannot deny any person medical care because they can't afford it as adequate medical care is a right not a privilege. That being said, we see the reverse being the norm.
The most important thing here is, YOU, how would you practice? What would be YOUR driving force?
Alexander recommends the following next steps:
Daniel’s Answer
1.Respect for autonomy honors the patient's right to make decisions about their own care.
All other principles depend upon the first.
2.Respect for justice and intent to pursue it in all aspects of care.
3.Commitment to pursuit of beneficence.
4. Commitment to nonmaleficence.
American healthcare is challenged by lack of access across demographics,lack of integrated,multilevel care, and cost.
Entrepreneurial healthcare and the idea that free enterprise intrinsically respects autonomy, justice,beneficence, and nonmaleficence is simply wrong.
Your question is an important one that begs a societywide answer.
Pauline J.’s Answer
Various government agencies have set guidelines to get patients better more efficiently. Patients cannot stay in the hospital indefinitely. Recuperation and other parts of treatment can be continued in skilled facilities like nursing homes or rehabilitation centers. This means we need to discharge patients as soon as they are stable either to their homes or to the above facilities.
While it is wrong to not treat a patient when he has no funds to pay the hospital, it is also immoral to try to treat someone whose condition is clearly beyond help. We cannot help all patients even with advanced technology. There will come a time when patients, or their families will need to make the decision to let their family members go peacefully and with dignity. Hopefully the patients have living wills indicating their end of life wishes as it will just be inhumane to subject them to all the tubes and needles and tests when the end is inevitable. Bioethics comes in when conflict or questions arise as to whether we should continue care and the patient did not have a chance to inform the hospital staff or his family members of his wishes. Life ends no matter what we do and when it is time, we should morally not allow it to linger with just machines and tubes. Medicine is a noble profession that we, who are fortunate enough to practice get rewarded well financially but more than anything with such great satisfaction as we know we are helping people! Colleges and universities should teach their students to pick a profession where they would be happy as financial gains will follow after, and not the other way around.
Mariam’s Answer
I'm really impressed by this question ,Once you've decided to become a doctor, you have to realize that your main goal is to treat the patient perfectly , and provide the best medical care as best you can ،You should adhere to medical ethics because medicine is a noble profession and in order to protect your dignity and patients' rights. .
There are 4 cornerstones of medical ethics :
Principle of respect for autonomy,
Principle of nonmaleficence,
Principle of beneficence, and
Principle of justice.
And here are 2 suggestions that schools can take into consideration to improve understanding of these ethics :
1 .by offering online sessions , webinars so that students
Can find easy access to the content that would be accessible for any one .
2. They can use different methods to demonstrate this topic instead of traditional lectures, they can use workshops ans asking students to give Presentations on the importance of medical ethics and how they can apply them in work and examples for real cases and how they would deal with these situations .
I think this method of learning can move learners from knowledge acquisition to behavior change and application for achieving the goal of excellent patient care .