Ethics in Biomedical Engineering

Lecturer:

Tutor:

Supervisor:

Department of medical branches and humanities

Synopsis:

Deontologic and utilitar ethics, responsible ethics, problem of virtue. Relationship of ethics and legal norms. Ethics codex. Problem of correctness. Ethics of relationship between health care staff and suppliers, ethics of advertising in health care services, problem of conflict of interest in medicine. Regulation of research in medicine, provid safety and human dignity of subject entering research study. Ethics and legal norm for research in medicine.

Requirements:

Presence and seminar work

Syllabus of lectures:

General ethics, phenomenology of ethics. Ethics as individual and social phenomenon; raise of moral norms; ttransmission of moral norm across generations; changes of moral norms in time and their constancy; Ethics in

postmodern era History of health care ethics Why health care ethics is a new branch; interconnections between social and technological development and ethics

Methodology of health care ethics Argument in ethics, principialism and consequen-tionalism, dialogue (discourse) in health care ethics, team co-operation; Important is-sues in health care ethics. Dehumanisation of medicine, its solution in a movement of patient's rights. New di-lemmas stemming from new technologies. Problem of regulation of clinical research. Rights of patients, Bioethics Convention. Why rights of patients replaced former deon-tological ethics? Development of the movement of rights of patients, rights of patients in post-communist countries. Content of rights of patients. End-of-life decisions. Demented and unconscious patient, advance directives, team dialogue about solutions. Euthanasia and assisted suicide Etymology a clarification of terms, active and passive euthanasia, problems around legalisation of euthanasia. Ethical aspects of transplantation medicine. Organ harvesting, problem of brain death, opting out and opting in systems, anonymity of donors Assisted reproduction, cloning, stem cells, embryonic research, problem of genetic testing. Artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, problematic possibilities which offers in vitro fertilization, sparse embryos. Terminology of cloning, problem of stem cells, problem embryonic research and therapeutic cloning, problem of genetic testing Research in medicine and its regulation. History, Nuremberg code, Declaration of Hel-sinki, Good Clinical Practice and decree 2001/20/EC of European parliament and EC from April 4 2001, ethics committees.

National and international legal norms coming from ethical consensus in EU. Bio-ethics Convention http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/164.htm UNESCO Declaration - General declaration on human genome and human rights. Le-gal norms regulating EU research.

Syllabus of tutorials:

No exercises

Study Objective:

To increase sensitivity of student to ethical considerations in health care service. The course offers elementary survey of theoretical fundamentals of morality and basic terms using in ethics. Student will be instructed on methods used to solve serious ethical dilemas.

Study materials:

[1] Koch, The Quest for consciousness, Roberts and Co, Englewood, CO, 2004.

[2] Crick, The astonishing hipothesis, Charles Scribner´s sons, New York, 1994.

Note:

Further information:

No time-table has been prepared for this course

The course is a part of the following study plans: