Ethics in sports medicine

Sports medicine physicians are not exempt from the ethical challenges of medical practice merely because their patients are robust and healthy. In fact, precisely because the patients with sports injuries are so healthy the moral issues remain subtle. Many ethical issues in sports medicine come about because the traditional relationship between doctor and patient is altered or absent. In the current review, several routine topics in biomedical ethics, including doctor and patient confidentiality, informed consent, the care of minors, medical advertising and use of innovative treatments, will be studied from the sports medicine perspective. Hypothetical case histories will be presented, along with an analysis of the underlying ethical issues. The goal of this analysis is not to offer answers to these moral questions, but to increase awareness and promote contemplation of the correct course of action.     

Ethics in sports medicine

All physicians are faced at some time with fundamental challenges while striving to respect the principle canons which define a physician's ethical code. These canons are: 1. Primacy of patient interests, 2. Patient confidentiality, 3, Informed consent, and 4. Maintenance of a high standard of care. Athletes, because of their focus on performance, often present unique situations which lead to ethical challenges not seen in the general patient population. Adherence to the four principle ethical canons guides physicians to make ethical decisions when dealing with these unique patients.     

Ethics education at the engineering/medicine interface.

There is a functioning interface between engineering and medicine. There are also wide-spread indications in the scientific community that there is increased concern for ethical matters in science and that the time has arrived for more instruction in this area. One reason for this in bioengineering is the rapidly growing complexity of technology in both engineering and medical biology. The ensuing difficulty in communication cannot be remedied just with more technical information. Instead bioengineers need an improved understanding of medical education and practice, and medical ethics is fundamental to this. Ethical considerations are crucial to decision making and therefore to all areas of professional endeavor in bioengineering. As a framework for ethics education, bioengineers need to gain a better understanding both of medical education in general and of medical practice, particularly the case study method in education and the nature of decision making in medical practice. Key subject areas in medical ethics for bioengineers include rights and duties of physicians, determination of death, team ethics, patient privacy and informed consent, research ethics, and malpractice. An ethics curriculum for bioengineers should be taught using both informal but regular exposure to clinical activities and clinicians, and formal classroom work. In the medical ethics classroom setting, writing assignments are essential to provoke each student to the introspection and commitment needed to form a personal professional ethos.     

Ethics of organ transplantation in Japan: an example of cultural transplantation in medicine

Since the passage of the Organ Transplant Law in October 1997, only nine persons declared dead by neurological criteria have donated their organs in Japan. This article is an attempt by Japanese anesthesiologists to introduce the cultural and moral justification of Japanese transplant practice to the international community.