EACME Newsletter 35

Download the full December 2013 EACME Newsletter

Contents

Editorial  C. Gastmans

“Personalised Medicine” Medicine for the Person? Ethical challenges for medical research and practice – Annual Conference Bochum, Germany  R. Horn

EACME Centre in the Spotlight

Bio Law  A. Cartolovni

Bringing Ethical Conflicts to a Solution – Annual conference of the Academy for Ethics in Medicine, Munich  S. Salloch and J. Schildmann

Nanoclinical Trials: Challenge for Research Ethics Committees  V. Daloiso

Note de Lecture: D. Dickenson Me Medicine vs. We Medicine . J. Martin

Advanced Bioethics Course

Thesis

Special Issue of the EACME Newsletter

Se confronter à la mort et l’apprivoiser  J. Martin

Deadline for the next newsletter

Announcements

Editorial Board

Editorial

This is my first editorial as new president of EACME. During the annual EACME meeting in Bochum, a new Bureau was established. Rouven Porz is prepared to place his talents further in the service of EACME as its Secretary-General. Ruud ter Meulen is taking up the task of Treasurer. My thanks go to my predecessor, Renzo Pegoraro, who has led our Association for the last three years with great enthusiasm, always offering a friendly smile. As member of the Bureau for more than ten years, Renzo really contributed to the flourishing of EACME. I am grateful for the support of the Board of directors, and hope to be able to explore new orientations through dialogue and consensus. This will not be possible without the excellent work of Angelique Heijnen, our executive secretary, whose commitment is the driving force behind the daily functioning of EACME.

EACME, as the umbrella organization of European centers for medical ethics, will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary in 2016. That means that for almost thirty years, medical ethicists from all over Europe are gathering during the annual EACME conferences in order to present their work and to go into dialogue with each other. Last September, we experienced that the EACME conference in Bochum was a unique opportunity to treat new hot research topics like ethics and personalized medicine.

During these thirty years, medical ethics has been changed. The field of medical ethics research has been broadened. Not only purely medical practices, but also for instance management in nursing practices have been developed as ethically sensitive practices that deserve ethical reflection. Hence, broader concepts like healthcare ethics have been suggested as new umbrella concepts that reflect the ethical reflection in the field of healthcare.

As medical ethics is always exploring its boundaries, I think it is important that EACME is also constantly reflecting on its status and its goals. Looking back to our mission statement that was drafted some years ago, I see three challenges for the coming years:

First, I think it is important to promote debate on the specific ethical values and ethical theories in relation to healthcare practices. In short, what is the ethical core of medical ethics, and what makes medical ethics different from for instance the social sciences?

Second, we should think about the relationship of EACME with other societies and associations in the field of health care ethics. As we are not the only organization in the field, we should think about our specificity.

And last but not least, we should continue to strengthen the link with young researchers in the field of health care ethics. EACME has been changed from a rather small group of directors of centers of medical ethics into a large network of younger and older researchers. I think we should strengthen this network-like style.

As you see, there is much to do in preparation of our thirtieth anniversary. I hope we can do this together and in dialogue. On behalf of the Bureau of EACME, I would like to extend our many thanks for the cooperation we have enjoyed over the past years and we look forward to working together with you again in the coming years. And last but not least, I wish you all a happy new year!

Chris Gastmans

Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law

University of Leuven, Belgium

Chris.Gastmans@med.kuleuven.be

Download the full December 2013 EACME Newsletter