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Biomedical subjects

Alex Mauron

Publications and source records attributed to Alex Mauron.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

The ethics of palliative care and euthanasia: exploring common values.

The ethical underpinnings of palliative care and those of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide (VE/AS) are often viewed as opposites. In this article, we review the values held in common by the euthanasia legalization movement and palliative care providers. Outlining this common ground serves to define, with greater clarity, the issues on which differences do exist, and ways in which some open questions, which are as yet unresolved, could be approached. Open discussion between VE/AS legalization advocates and palliative care providers is important to address these open questions seriously, and to enrich the care of terminally ill patients by giving members of both groups access to each other's experience.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2004

Selective contracting of Swiss physicians: ethical issues and open questions.

One of the many important ethical issues raised by health care systems is how best to sustain equity. As conflicting individual interests are inevitable within a health care system, issues of fairness are bound to arise. Changes in the structure of a health care system are thus key events that can affect equity in important ways. Using the "Benchmarks of Fairness" approach, we assessed the possible effects of introducing selective contracting of physicians on the equity of the Swiss health care system. This approach yields a number of open questions that need to be further addressed if this proposed reform is to be implemented without diminishing the fairness of health care financing and delivery in Switzerland.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed2003

Renovating the house of being: genomes, souls, and selves.

In recent years, the views of the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk about humanism and the biological self-engineering of mankind caused much turmoil in European intellectual circles. However, this is just one episode in a more general current controversy about the ethics of self-manipulation, a debate that often centers around the recent progress in genomics and the possibility of shaping human genetic structure. The complete sequencing of the human genome has reinforced this focus. Making the human genome the object of a highly visible world-wide research effort has reinforced popular notions stressing the centrality of the genome in defining individuality and humanity. As a result, proponents and opponents of the self-engineering of human nature have often concentrated on technologies related to the genome. However, if one compares "genome-based" and "brain-based" explanations of Self and behavior, it turns out that neural aspects of human nature are more directly relevant. Many philosophical and ethical questions traditionally raised about genetics and genomics acquire more relevance and urgency when re-examined in the context of neuroscience.

Bioethics↗