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Biomedical subjects

P Cattorini

Publications and source records attributed to P Cattorini.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Clinical bioethics: identity, role, aims.

Clinical bioethics may help ethics to pay deeper attention to the real phenomena of the moral life, with the aid of the psychological tradition, particularly of the psychoanalytic lesson. If we focus on the concrete moral experience of the patient, we recognize that rational justification of moral judgements (that is ethics) does not apply principles in a syllogistic way, but makes abstraction from a living emotional world, which is more rich and concrete than the theoretical precepts and axioms used.

Bioethics↗
PubMed2001

Moral norms and hermeneutics in clinical bioethics.

Clinical bioethics applies moral norms to clinical situations, but this kind of application is not of an impersonal, deductive kind. In the stories of illness the suffering voices of the patients have to be heard and interpreted, to discover the real meaning of their resort to medicine. In a hermeneutical perspective, moral norms have a symbolic nature, because they command a good personal attitude toward the other persons and they prohibit an hostile intention of exploitation, domination, abuse.

Bioethics↗
PubMed1998

The idea of physician as a bioethical topic.

The model of the physician as a caregiver and as a researcher has been given extensive attention in the bioethical debate. There has been a transition in the last decades from the traditional idea of a physician inserted in the hippocratic ethos to a more technical and contractarian model; we contend that the latter fails to capture the essential features of the clinical encounter, in that its presuppositions are abstract and lead to unintended results. Other models have been proposed (beneficence, covenant, care) which seem to better fit the reality of the clinical encounter. In the experimental setting there is a particularly illuminating example of the type of relationship which we find more convincing.

Bioethics↗
PubMed1997

Persistent vegetative state: a presumption to treat.

The article briefly analyzes the concept of a person, arguing that personhood does not coincide with the actual enjoyment of certain intellectual capacities, but is coextensive with the embodiment of a human individual. Since in PVS patients we can observe a human individual functioning as a whole, we must conclude that these patients are still human persons, even if in a condition of extreme impairment. It is then argued that some forms of minimal treatment may not be futile for these patients; they may constitute a form of respect for their human dignity and benefit these patients, even if they are not aware of that. Moreover, it is important to consider the symbolic significance of care: while many believe that PVS is a kind of imprisonment, for others providing food and fluids is the only way to testify our proximity to these persons. The best policy would be to provide, as a general rule, artificial nutrition and hydration to PVS patients: this treatment could be withdrawn, after a period of observation and reflection by the family and proxies, on the basis of the proxies' objection to the continuation or of the patient's advance directives specifically referring to this situation.

Advance Directives↗
PubMed1993

The physician as caregiver and researcher.

The physician might happen to play a double role in the clinical setting when he is the caregiver as well as the researcher for a patient at the same time. The dynamics and the ethical profile of the two relationships caregiver-patient and researcher-subject are different, and conflicts might arise: while the main responsibility of the caregiver is directed towards the patient "here and now", the researcher has a primary responsibility for future patients, the scientific community and the society at large. It has been suggested that in the clinical setting the researcher, provided that all the requirements for the ethical conduct of an experimentation be respected, has an "autonomy-in-trust", i.e. a wide discretional space in the decision-making process. While agreeing with such a proposal to some extent, we suggest that a more active and deeper participation of subjects in the experimental process, through an ongoing consent and joint decision-making process, would help in overcoming many possible conflicts.

Beneficence↗
PubMed1989

[Violence involving minors. Reflections on medical ethics].

A case of violence involving a minor is analysed from the ethical point of view, pointing out that the so-called principles of biomedical ethics (autonomy, beneficence, justice) intersect and are sometimes in conflict one with the other. A series of conditions is proposed for tracing the authentic representative of the interests of pediatric patients, and the clinician's role in difficult cases, which should be that of a guardian and an adviser as well as a technician is underlined.

Child↗
PubMed1985

[Not Available].

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History, Modern 1601-↗