Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine
Year:2017 | Volume:9 | Issue:5|Papers Count:6

Euthanasia is still a controversial issue worldwide. There are different and sometimes contradictory opinions about euthanasia and its practice. By exchange of ideas and opinions about this issue, some countries have explicitly accepted euthanasia and it has been legalized. Whereas, some other countries distinctly rejected euthanasia and in result it has been criminalized. Among countries there is a third group, with a passive or neutral position. In those countries, like Iran, the acceptance or rejection of euthanasia has been discussed among the law experts but there is no legislation to address the issue. This article aims to evaluate euthanasia based on the Article 372 of Iran's Islamic penal code.

Archaeological evidence and various historical documents indicate that Chinese were aware of the lands beyond the mountains of the West, especially Iran. This article argues that Iranians had a great role in transferring Iranian religions as well as some other religions such as Christianity to China. As such, the transfer of medical knowledge had had occurred along with transferring those religions and beliefs.As it is the case now, in the past, business relationship between countries and different ethnic groups played a great role in knowledge transfer between nations. By reviewing the existing historical documents, library resources and archaeological findings, show that the extensive trade exchanges between Iran and China, lead to not only cultural exchange and religious beliefs but also the transfer of medical beliefs, knowledge and practices to China. This happened by the Iranian religious envoys as well as non-Iranian religious missionaries. In conclusion, this knowledge and technology transfer had an impact on the flourishing Chinese medicine.

Since the beginning of the Imamia school of thought, Imamia scholars paid a great attention to issue of physicians’ responsibility. With a long-lasting debate on this issue, in most cases they have confirmed physician’s responsibility in medical error. However, in terms of a skilled medical doctor who treats the patient with no medical error but harm occurs, there is no consensus. Some scholars have said that if the physician had the patient’s (or family) consent for the treatment, then the physician is notguilty. In the contrary, some scholars believe that the physician still should bear the responsibility.This paper aims to examine the Islamic Pinal Code (no.495) by relying on changing trajectory Imamia jurisprudence in exchange for claimed physicians’ responsibility. The legislators in Article 495 of the Islamic Penal Code (Act.92), seems to take into account both mentioned perspectives and try to choose a middle way. However, in practice, this has caused confusion.

The cultural competence, responsibility and ethical beliefs are influential factors in providing quality services by nurses and pay an important role in patient's right. The purpose of this research was to illustarte a predictive model of patient's right based on cultural competence, responsibility and ethical beliefs. The research method was correlational study conducted in 2016 among 300 nurses in west Azerbaijan in 2016, selected by multistage cluster sampling. For gathering the data, the Perng and Watson’s nurses’ cultural competence questionnaire, and the Mergler and Shield responsibility questionnaire as well as the Mahmoudi and et al questionnaire on ethical beliefs and Scale rights of patients were used. The data were analyzed by using Pearson correlational coefficient and bootstrap through SPSS software and amos-22. The results indicated that the model was fitted and has direct effect in cultural competence (0.11), responsibility (0.57) and ethical beliefs (0.24) onnurse’s attitude with the rights of patients were significant. The indirect effects of cultural competence (0.03) and responsibility (0.03) with mediating of forming the model of ethical beliefs were significant. In conclusion, %65 of the variance in nurses’ attitudes to the patients' rights was determined by the variables of this research model. Due to the direct and indirect effects of cultural competence, responsibility and ethical beliefs on the attitudes of nurses towards patients' rights, it is important to increase cultural competence relationship and responsibility with nurses’ attitudes towards patient’s rights by focusing on ethical beliefs.

Nursing is an ethical profession and nurses are responsible for patient care. In providing healthcare services, patient right is an important issue to consider. However, not only the awareness the patient right is important but also moral sensitivity to ethical decision-making is crucial. This study aimed to determine the relationship between moral sensibility and attitude towards patients' rights. A descriptive-analytic study was used and 194 nurses working in intensive care units in hospitals affiliated to medical university of South Khorasan province were selected by convenience sampling method. The data collected through a questionnaire consisting of three parts: 1) demographics 2) the moral sensitivity questionnaire (Korean version), and 3) a questionnaire survey of nurses' attitudes towards the patients’ rights. Data collected by the software SPSS version 16, and were analyzed descriptive and analytical statistical tests.The results showed that there is a significant direct relationship between average moral sensibility and nurses' attitudes towards patients’ rights (r=0.6, P=0.03). The average nurse's ethical sensitivity has been reported 3.05±0.68 0f the total score (0-4). The average attitude towards the patients’ rights was 4±0.8 of the total score (1-5). The relationship between moral sensitivity whit the years of service and age of the participants was significant (P<0.05). There was also a significant relationship between the attitudes of nurses towards patients' rights with gender and years of service (P<0.05). In conclusion it is necessary to provide more moral education to increase nurse’s moral sensitivity towards patients’ rights. It should be noted that due to the fact that moral sensitivity and attitude towards patients' rights increases with the number of years of service the article suggests that considering more experienced nurses in the teams would result a more morally sensitive care for the patients.

Errors in health care services may cause irreversible harm in some cases. Medical errors are a threat to the welfare and health of the patient and their family and should be prevented. The majority of medical errors have little impact on human health, but some of them cause huge losses. This report describes a case of laboratory error in amniocentesis during pregnancy in which uncertain test result caused anxiety and lots of concern for the family. Inappropriate approach to medical error causes more errors to happen. Studies have shown that appropriate reporting and shift from traditional to systematic approach are important factors in reducing the frequency of medical errors.