Pakistan and biomedical ethics: Report from a Muslim country

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 249-255

  Moazam, Farhat ^a,b   Jafarey, Aamir M ^a,c,d,e  

^a SINDH INSTITUTE OF UROLOGY AND TRANSPLANTATION   (Pakistan)

^b UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

^c Department of Surgery ^*

^d AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY   (Pakistan)

^e HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; DOCTOR PATIENT RELATION; HUMAN; ILLEGAL ABORTION; MEDICAL ETHICS; MOSLEM; PAKISTAN; RESEARCH ETHICS; REVIEW; TERMINAL CARE;

BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; RELIGIOUS APPROACH;

ADVISORY COMMITTEES; BIOETHICAL ISSUES; BIOETHICS; CODES OF ETHICS; CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS; ETHICS, CLINICAL; ETHICS, MEDICAL; ETHICS, RESEARCH; HUMANS; ISLAM; PAKISTAN;

EID: 21144447373     PISSN: 09631801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0963180105050346     Document Type: Review

References (15)

1. United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Human Development Report. 2004.
2. Campbell AV. Presidential address: Global bioethics - Dream or nightmare? Bioethics 1999;13:183-90.
3. The Chairman at the time was Jack Bryant, an American public health physician with extensive experience in working in developing countries. He is also one of the drafters of the first ethical guidelines for biomedical research issued by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS).
4. Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
5. At the time, one of the authors (Moazam) was the associate dean of the Aga Khan University postgraduate medical education (residency programs) and instrumental in making bioethics a mandatory part of resident education. For details of the evolution of bioethical activities at AKU, see Jafarey A. The bioethics group of the Aga Khan University, Karachi. Issues in Medical Ethics 2002;X:165-6.
6. Besides AKU, which has had a standing committee to review institutional research proposals for a decade, another private university in Karachi, Ziauddin Medical University, has recently set up such a committee and another private sector institution, the Liaquat National Hospital and Postgraduate Institute, has expressed an interest in doing so. The web site of the Office of Human Research Protection (OHRP) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services currently lists eight Ethics Review Committees in Pakistan that are approved. Of these, three are located in universities and five are names of NGOs. Available from http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/.
7. For a list of some of the articles related to bioethics from Pakistani authors see Hyder AA, Nadeem S. Health ethics in Pakistan: A literature review of its present state. Journal of Health Population and Nutrition 2001;19:6-11.
8. For an account of how indigenous cultural and religious values inevitably influence ethics consultants, their deliberations, and actions, see Moazam F, Zaman RM. At the interface of cultures. The Journal of Clinical Ethics 2003;14:246-58.
9. The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. Code of Ethics for Medical and Dental Practitioners. 2002;Aug:5-7,12. The entire code of ethics is available from http://www.pmdc.org.pk/ethics.htm.
10. For details, see the Pakistan government document entitled "The Gazette of Pakistan, Published by Authority," Part IV, Registered No. M.302, Ministry of Health, Islamabad, 2004 Jan 12; 8-9.
11. The plans for the Center of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, its objectives, and its activities were worked out between Dr. Adibul Hasan Rizvi and one of the authors (Moazam) over 2002-2004. She was subsequently offered, and accepted, the position of chairperson for the Center.
12. Biomedical ethics, culture centre at SIUT. Dawn 2004;9:17.
13. The international speakers who have agreed to participate in the April 2005 Course include Jonathan Moreno, Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia (UVA), Aziz Sachedina, Muslim scholar from the Department of Religious Studies, UVA, and Renee C. Fox, Annenberg Professor Emerita of Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
14. For a good discussion of the role and interaction of philosophy and religion in the evolution of bioethics in the United States, see Messikomer CM, Fox RC, Swazey JP. The presence and influence of religion in American bioethics. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 2001;44:485-508.
15. For an elaboration of this concept, see Moazam F. Families, patients, and physicians in medical decisionmaking: A Pakistani perspective. Hastings Center Report 2000;30:28-37.