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December 2020 EACME Newsletter
Contents
Editorials G. Birchley and C. Brall
News from the EACME Bureau R. Horn
Angelique Heijnen: 20 years EACME
Introduction of Kim Zandvliet
Cluj – Napoca EACME Conference 2021
Mutual Learning – a new Partnership between Bern and Cluj-Napoca M. Aluas and R. Porz
Users’ relatives’ presence during Covid-19 C. Perron and M. Martisella González
Tools for the ethical reflection on technology in old age K. Grüber
PhD Thesis H. Smith and L. Hartman
Call for Abstracts
Call for Papers
Advanced European Bioethics Course 2021
Vacancy
Deadline Next newsletter
Editorial Board
Editorial
As Ruth has mentioned in the “News from the Bureau”, much of Europe – and the world – remains in uncertain times due to the pandemic, although there is perhaps more hope in the air, with some of the 1701 candidate vaccines for COVID-19 now reaching late stages of trials. While this is heartening, the emergence of a vaccine will bring new, but familiar, ethical challenges not least securing the just distribution of vaccines to the poorest members of global society. Nor must we allow the hoped-for retreat of the pandemic in the wealthy nations to blind us to the fact that pandemics of this nature will become ever more likely given the population pressures linked to the enormous ecological emergency that confronts us.2 This emergency still lacks adequate redress, and its urgency – and its enormous ethical repercussions – becomes more apparent by the day.
In some ways, the global pandemic gives us a glimpse of both the best and the worst that humanity can achieve – the speed and energy with which science can confront and develop responses to the emergency is awe-inspiring. Problems of science denialism, short-termism, localism, rampant health commercialisation and inadequate and inequitable distribution are desperately disheartening. My hope is that attention to medical ethics can have some, small, effect on this blinkered approach, but it can only do so by being savvy to the wider socio-economic context in which healthcare takes place.
On this note, it occurs to me that the long-drawn-out process of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union sits at both ends of my stint as editor of EACME news. Now it is time for me also to make my exit, as editor at least. I will still remain an enthusiastic member of the EACME network, and I hope, as a contributor to the newsletter, only now my ramblings will come under some editorial control! On this last note, I introduce and commend your new editor, Caroline Brall.
Dr Giles Birchley
Centre for Ethics in Medicine, University of Bristol, U.K.
Download the full December 2020 EACME Newsletter
