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December 2017 EACME Newsletter
Contents
Editorial G. Birchley
News from the EACME Bureau R. Porz
Solidarity and its meaning for bioethics, a report of a journey R. ter Meulen
Report on the 2017 Postgraduate Bioethics Conference K. Sahan
About the Bulgarian Association of Bioethics and Clinical Ethics S. Aleksandrova-Yankulovska
ECEN 4th OPEN FORUM DAY 2017 S. Aleksandrova-Yankulovska
Institutional space for multi-perspective decision-making: a challenging international research project I. van Nistelrooij
A Kantian reflective judgment reprise for a new decision-making process A. Castagnoli
An example of big data management for a population-based health monitoring project L.Caenazzo and L.M. Mariani
You can’t say fairer than that! T. Kleinhout-Vliek
A new phenomenon: The vaccinisation of ´unhealthy´ lifestyles A. Wolters
Book review: Jacques Besson- Addiction et spiritualité J. Martin
Announcement of the Summer School Clinical Ethics 2018 L.Caenazzo
European Conference on Research Integrity: Why Research Integrity Matters to You W. Halffman
Summary of the BRIDGES workshop I. Lee
Deadline of next newsletter
Season’s greetings
Editorial Board
Editorial
The publication of the revised Declaration of Geneva on 20th November 2017 shows that ethics ostensibly remain central to the practice of medicine. Notable changes included the inclusion, for the first time, of a reference to respecting patient autonomy. Respect for autonomy remains a central principle of medical ethics. As befits such an important keystone, autonomy is a topic that is never far from the investigations of the philosophers or social scientists working in medical ethics, nor far from the concerns of those working with patients themselves. What is this principle to mean? We worry that gathering data to improve health may impinge on autonomy. We worry about squaring the circle of a commitment to care for our patients and an ethical imperative to let our patients do as they please, even if this causes them harm. We worry patients consume more than their fair share of resources, denying opportunities to others.
Luckily, we have a number of articles in the December issue of the newsletter that help us consider these, and other, issues: Prof Luciana Caenazzo considers the topic of big data, Dr Inge van Nistelrooij writes about a new project to look at the place of care ethics in decision-making, while Tineke Kleinhout-Vliek discusses her reflections on a project looking at how decisions about scarce resources were framed. Not all of these articles make us confident that respecting autonomy is always what happens in practice. Yet they do showcase the great variety of work that is being done on the issue across our network. I am glad to say this network is still growing. Inside you will also find a report from the Bulgarian Association of Bioethics and Clinical Ethics, conference reports and an insightful article into the philosophy of decision-making amongst other contributions. As 2017 draws to an end, with all its failures, upsets and – I am sad to say – horrors, we have also had some successes. I am heartened we can say that our EACME network is going strong.
Dr Giles Birchley
Centre for Ethics in Medicine, University of Bristol, U.K.
Download the full December 2017 EACME Newsletter
