AGM and Evidence-based bioethics: A myth or a reality?

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Venue: Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street, LONDON, W1G 0AE

The Open Section are delighted to announce that Professor Daniel Sulmasy, member of President Obama's 2010 Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, will be delivering this evening lecture on Evidence-based bioethics.

Professor Sulmasy is in the United Kingdom as Visiting Research Fellow of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford.

Medical ethics is something which we often take for granted until something disrupts the status quo. This may be a new technology, a perceived change in society, or even a breaking scandal involving healthcare workers or researchers. Consequently, healthcare and biomedical research openly acknowledge the need for ethical standards and research to determine what those standards should be, what values underlie them and how they are interpreted, whether at the laboratory bench or at the bedside. Where do these ideas come from, which political leaders and professions accept, reject, endorse or negotiate? What counts as evidence in biomedical ethics: well argued philosophical views? A sound interpretation of existing laws and religious viewpoints? Empirical research demonstrating how ethical values and standards are enacted?

AIMS: To discuss what counts as evidence for medical and research bodies as well as governments in the area of medical ethics and biomedical research ethics

OBJECTIVES: At the end of the meeting participants will:
- Have heard about what is considered as evidence by the US President's Commission on Bioethics
- Have been shown data from a qualitative study illustrating possible relationships between medical ethics and medical practice.
- Have had the opportunity to discuss different kinds of research in ethics, law and professionalism, and to debate were different types of research may be more or less relevant
- Have had the opportunity to discuss the "Theory: practice gap" - described as the difference between what should happen and what does happen, in the context of the professional behaviours of medical researchers and healthcare professionals.

You may also be interested in registering for a free 30 day trial to the Clinical Ethics journal published by Royal Society of Medicine Press.