Medical Ethics
Year:2009 | Volume:3 | Issue:8|Papers Count:8

The harmful outcomes of inordinate exploit from the nature and appearance of various kinds of pollutants, unplanned development of all fields leading to destruction and pollution of the environment and a global view towards other bioenvironmental factors are all indicating a very perilous situation in the world. Therefore, the necessity of developing bioenvironmental principles upon divine ethical ideals and development of worldly life as well is observed more than any other time. Such collection of the principles and doctrines might not be developed through a comprehensive individual or group manner because it needs some ideological and anthropological basis to be inspired from a supernatural source that is nothing but revelatory instructions. The environment is considered as everything around to be affected by or affects us and includes natural, artificial and social environment. Following principles can be mentioned from the viewpoint of Islam: environmental justice – reconstruction of the artificial environment – to invite the people to protect the environment – to study the bioenvironmental impacts of development projects – to prevent from destruction of the environment - Optimum consumption - Environmental Health – to prevent from environmental pollution – water sanitation – air sanitation – noise sanitation – earth health - health trash – to make recycling system – to extend the green spaces and to execute national and international protocols are the most important among all.

Human being as the privileged creature could have overcome the major part of the world using his power of thinking and wisdom and plays an important role in the changes made in his around through ruling over the vital elements of water, air and soil. The unlimited desire of human being for having an ideal living condition besides the increasing rate of population, made him to manipulate everything around in favor of himself and to cause some big unwanted problems sometimes. By keeping on making such changes and destruction to the environment and contaminating the natural resources, it will not take a long time that we can no more do anything for the revival of the natural resources and saving the environment. With regard to the significant role of the religious and educational issues, it is necessary to draw the attention of the Muslim, in the light of Ayah, Hadith and Thanksgiving, toward the divine gifts and ask him to assist in protecting the natural resources from being polluted.In this article, in order to protect the three basic elements of the living environment that is water, air and soil, it has been pointed out to the related Ayah and narratives of our religious doctrines.

The animal rights that so-called animal freedom, describe that animals must be seen as real identities and members of an ethical community, so they must not be used as food, clothes, entertainments and in research issues. Research on animals has an important role in many scientific and medical progresses in recent century and it is helping us for better understanding of diseases mechanisms. Today, people have higher quality of life, because of these progresses, medicines development and new cures. Animal rights groups believe that these experiments on animals are cruel and unnecessary and all experiments must be stopped. In according to that these experiments in biomedical field cannot be done without using animals; animals rights and welfare unions are looking for two main targets: the first is to decrease animal’s suffering and reduce the numbers of animals are used in experiments, and the second is induce sensitivity in researchers if they really need the animals for their research or not?. Today, because of some limitations, researchers are using alternative methods such as computer modeling, human cell lines and etc. However, the most important parts of biomedical research require using animals yet.

Through taking a medical oath (Hippocratic Oath), physician swears to save the patient’s life and wait for a bright future in the seat of a doctor with full satisfaction from all the times he has passed. Medicine is a profession which is responsible for “treatment of the patient”. Through this job, the physicians are faced with different people from different sexual, social and age groups during a routine day. Though these people are not all the same person, a physician calls them all as a common title of “patient”. The patient also knows that he can indeed trust the physician and explain every problem of himself to the physician. Upon this trust, the patient can convince himself to let the physician decide about his health. A real diagnosis and treatment is possible just in case the physician is fully instructed about the necessary skills related to the patients, people and society, and is completely familiar with his society, its social behavior, rites, traditions and culture as well. The relationship between a physician and his patient must be in a way that the patient is optimistically encouraged to continue the treatment process. A correct doctor-patient relationship and an appropriate emotional atmosphere in this regard can play the role of an effective motive for the patient to follow the medical treatment process and to change his behavior in order to achieve the best result. The benefits of the patient consent from his doctor-patient relationship have been described well within the studies. The relationship between a physician and a patient should be in a way that the quadruplet essential principles of medical ethics concerning the patient rights is not ignored; it means that upon these principles, the right of the patient to make decision about the efficacy or inefficacy of the role of the selected physician in his treatment and administration of justice are achieved throughout all related fields.All attributes of a physician can be categorized into one of these four groups and so every feature of a physician can contribute towards following every one of these principles.The main objective of this research is to study the degree of the behavioral and ethical role of a physician in following the medical treatment plan by the patient during a treatment. The research is a cross-sectional study which has been done in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in 1387. With regard to the four essential principles of medical ethics concerning the patients’ rights that is, justice, beneficence Non-malfeasance and autonomy, every attribute of a physician is classified under one of these four principles.With regard to these principles, the four questionnaire principles prepared and distributed among medical students of the clinical section and the patients and the result were analyzed using statistical tests and showed that, administration of justice by the physician is considered as the most important factor in decreasing the disobedience of the patient from doctors’ orders in the opinion of both physicians and patients. The physicians’ belief in the patients’ autonomy 37% and the patients’ belief in beneficence of the doctor’s treatment plan 43.5% are the other major factors respectively among all criterions related to justice; to chose the best and the most affordable treatment plan and liability of the physician dedicated the highest statistical number to themselves consecutively by physician and patients. In this research, no relationship is found between the four mentioned principles of medical ethics and population attributes of the examinees like age and education but a significant relationship were found between gender and the belief in the role of justice in decreasing the disobedience of the patient.

Elective caesarean is defined by personal choice and medical indications. This raises many ethical issues among academics and specialists. Most of the women select caesarean due to fears of pain, fetal outcomes and cultural perceptions. Women’s level of awareness about differences of caesarean and normal delivery has not clearly seen reported. In this review paper we aim to determine the gray line of ethical and moral issues in selecting caesarean by individual themselves. In conclusion, the findings suggest that ethical codes of elective caesarean and personal choice must be explored in each social-cultural context. This will assist the health provider to make appropriate decisions in guiding families.

The book of minhadj al-dukkan is a pharmacopoeia which was written by Jewish pharmacist Al-kohen Al-attar in Islamic era (1260AC) in Cairo. The specialization of this book for pharmacists has possibly been one of the reasons for the wide dissemination of the work. The recipes are the author himself or come from other sources. This article introduces this book which contains 25 chapters. As a result ethical contents of this book show the importance of ethics for being a good pharmacist in Islamic era.

While there is small number of articles on the “Ethics in Pharmacy” and no remarkable course is presented to the student of pharmacy in the Iranian universities, the importance of doing some studies in this field is recognized more than ever. This has caused the student to be completely unaware of the ethical principles in pharmacy and all regulations they must follow during their professional job after graduating from the university; the only thing they are informed is the topics of the medical oath (Hippocratic Oath) they swear on, while they are presenting their thesis. And so, this lack of information can impose irreparable damages to the health system of the country. Thus in this article, it has been tried to focus on some ethical principles a pharmacist should follow them up. Moralities and feeling of responsibility are the main basis for determining the work area of different parts of the society. Pharmacy as a very professional practice is one of the cases in which decision making about drugs and the patient’s treatment has direct relation to the personal and social life of the patients. The role of a pharmacist is not determined unless the ethical principles and values, upon which the decisions are made, are quite clear and has been accepted by the whole society. The basis of responsible behavior in all medical fields has strict relation to the Hippocratic Oath. This oath has no definite philosophical justification and has just been recognized by inner circle of physicians. Nowadays, different modern problems like the role of technology, living expenses, definition of living, genetic engineering and Euthanasia needs to be analyzed through a logical viewpoint which is based on the philosophical and acceptable beliefs of the society.The fundamental values can be inferred from the works of 20th century’s philosophers like Rawls, Nussbaum and Sen. although converting these values to public rules seems to be a difficult act, in this article we are to present a comprehensive model describing the responsible behavior upon these values. This responsible behavior includes the pharmacist’s encounter with the patient in a way that values like autonomy, sympathy, compassion and justice are appropriately observed. This responsibility requires a practical experience and knowledge and must be recognized through proper legislation and policy making.

Infertility is considered as one of the oldest human dilemmas that have caused difficult periods of life with various nervous breakdowns and psychological pressures for the people involved in and finally such conditions led to some efforts to be made in order to achieve proper solutions for the case. One form of infertility which was thought incurable heretofore was "nonexistence of sexual cells" in which using the third person's gamete for fertilizing an infertile person has opened new horizons in treating the mentioned disorder. Along with the success of the great efforts were made in fertilizing the infertile person using the third person gamete, several ethical and juridical questions and challenges aroused that required specific regulations to be issued, especially for the state of donating gamete and embryo to the infertile couple, more necessary than ever. In order to solve these problems, different committees were formed within different countries and some rules were ratified in many countries upon which special conditions were determined for gamete and embryo donation or reception. One of these conditions is anonymity or "confidentiality" that is of the most discussable issues among all juridical and ethical schools. To conceal a parent-child genetic relationship is one of the important subjects which are ethically, jurisprudentially, legally, sociologically and psychologically discussable. A new article of law was ratified in Britain in 2005 that has terminated the anonymity of the gamete or embryo donor. Other countries like Austria, Sweden, Norway, Netherland and New Zealand issued similar regulations subsequently and put them into the action. The current study tries to challenge the principle of anonymity or confidentiality through analyzing different (ethical, jurisprudential, sociological and psychological) areas.