Research ethics review is an important process, designed to protect participants in medical research. However, it is increasingly criticised for failing to meet its aims. Here, two researchers reflect on their experiences of applying for ethical approval of observational research in clinical settings. They highlight some problems faced by reviewers and researchers and propose a two-stage ethica...

patient's refusal of treatment is the rational consequence of informed consent and is considered among the patient's rights but can lead to patient harm or harm to others, or damage to the health care system. major ethical challenges in the field of treatment refusal arise from capacitated patients. this paper mainly examines theoretical issues related to this group by reviewing books...

OBJECTIVES Assessment of ethical aspects of a technology is an important component of health technology assessment (HTA). Nevertheless, how the implementation of ethical assessment in HTA is to be organized and adapted to specific regulatory and organizational settings remains unclear. The objective of this study is to present a framework for systematic identification of ethical aspects of heal...

There are many issues of concern regarding the legal and ethical aspects of telemedicine. These include the responsibilities and potential liabilities of the health professional, the duty to maintain the confidentiality and privacy of patient records, and the jurisdictional problems associated with cross-border consultations. There is also the issue of reimbursement for care provided using a te...

The method of neural grafting is considered to be a very promising therapeutic strategy for the treatment of certain neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease or Huntington's disease. During the last 15 years, clinical transplantation studies have been carried out worldwide in several hundreds of patients with Parkinson's disease. In these studies, primarily fetal mesencephalic ti...

in a limited fashion in orthopaedic research but is not without controversy. The debate over sham surgery controls involves two predominant issues. The first is whether a randomized clinical trial with sham surgery control is a scientifically superior method to test either novel or questionably effective interventions for orthopaedic conditions. Secondly, one must ask whether the risks to subje...

Polls and surveys conducted within the United States show general agreement that there is public support for the protection of farm livestock and poultry. Concurrent with the growing public sentiment is the recent adoption of socially responsible corporate policies by major food retailers relative to animal welfare. The animal welfare assurance and audit programs developed by the private sector...

Robotics is a very fast growing field especially in the last years and is a discipline based on: mechanics, physics/mathematics, control engineering, electr(on)ics, computer science. Therefore robots are frequently used as examples for Mechatronic Systems. Robotics unifies two cultures: Science and humanities. The effort to design roboethics should make the unity of these two cultures a primary...

There is currently much debate about cryopreservation of ovarian tissue or oocytes as a possible means of fertility preservation for women urgently needing potentially sterilizing medical treatment. Although both techniques are still experimental, some centres have started offering them also to healthy women who want to postpone childbearing until after they may have lost their natural reproduc...

Gene editing is a rapidly developing area of biotechnology in which the nucleotide sequence of the genome of living cells is precisely changed. The use of genome-editing technologies to modify various types of blood cells, including hematopoietic stem cells, has emerged as an important field of therapeutic development for hematopoietic disease. Although these technologies offer the potential fo...