https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/49829 Sat, 18 Apr 2026 22:44:28 GMT 2026-04-18T22:44:28Z https://www.um.edu.mt:443/library/oar/retrieve/c27edb75-1f79-469b-8484-3bb00028fd39/bioethics.jpg https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/49829 https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/50749 Title: Towards humanization of medicine Abstract: To counter the feeling of disappointment that the end of a satisfying experience normally brings with it, we like to console ourselves by saying that all good things must come to an end. This National Dialogue has definitely been a good thing which, however, has just whetted our appetite and must, necessarily, continue to develop to maturity. I have now followed attentively the three activities of this National Dialogue on Bioethics. I admit I become much more conscious of the magnitude and multi-formity of the implications and issues bioethical problems raise. At times I felt like someone who starts to doubt the wisdom of stirring up such a hornet's nest and who is, therefore, tempted to leave it at that ... a sort of unfinished symphony. But then, having heard and watched so many young people and experts coming from different fields and disciplines, participating throughout the three days, one really feels encouraged to say with determination - finish it we must, because our people deserve the best we can give them of ourselves. Sun, 01 Jan 1989 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/50749 1989-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/50624 Title: Report on the National Dialogue on Bioethics Abstract: The week-end dialogue, as it considered and deliberated on the responsibilities and norms for those involved in health care in Malta, soon made the participants aware that new discoveries in life sciences, most especially in the area of biology and medicine as well as in psychiatry and psychology, can radically change human life as we know it. Recent advances suggest that we are rapidly acquiring the power to modify and control the capacities and activities of men by direct intervention and manipulation of their bodies and minds. Thus it was observed for instance, that in the area of fetology there has been a wide liberalization of new techniques of in vitro fertilization. The basic dilemma in the new biology is that now the engineer can be engineered. This potential for self-replication is presenting a variety of personal and social ethical problems. It is becoming obvious that life is no longer accepted, but positively assumed and often willfully destroyed. Consequently, both as individuals and as a society, our value systems are being challenged as new knowledge on medical and life-support techniques, biological phenomena and applied psychology, advances at break-neck speed. Sun, 01 Jan 1989 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/50624 1989-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/50623 Title: Bioethics : the case for a health ethics council Abstract: All ethical issues have ultimately to be resolved by the tribunal of every individual conscience opting for a particular course. This is not however to be seen as a refusal of extra-personal influences on the decision-making progress. As a matter of every day experience very few moral deliberations are made solely by picking -pelican like- at one's own authochthonous reflections. Again when we refer to natural law as being ingrained in every person's inner nature, and resorting to this inner source of direction, we are not implying a renounciation to a cultural elaboration of the canonical norms regulating our behaviour. The Natural Law itself as a concept is a cultural achievement, even if grounded on an elemental existential realization. Teaching or argument constitute no infringement, or indeed interference with liberty of constant or ultimate liberum arbitrium. Education is a constant element of freedom. A proper decision must be the result of the fullest possible information. Without formation and information the animula vagula blandula might be unbalanced by the flimsiest of whims or advance into the blind limbo of every moment's occasion with the sole guide of a walking stick's tentative soundings. Sun, 01 Jan 1989 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/50623 1989-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/50622 Title: Professional ethics determine professional attitudes Abstract: Professional ethics are the forms that determine professional attitudes, they are the principles that determine which ideas or actions are considered right or wrong. Professional ethics determine professional etiquette, rules of behaviour towards colleagues and what is more important towards patients. Until quite recently, professional ethics still reflected the ideas of the time that dominated the arguments preceeding the medical Acts of the 19th century which led to normal professional recognition for registered practitioners. The subject of professional ethics-especially medical ethics- is a topic which is very subjective and we see that all strata of society have their own different views about it, views that have been publicized widely in books, journals, papers, seminars etc, thus giving opportunity to interested individuals and organisations to establish their own norms of medical ethics against the generally accepted principles. Sun, 01 Jan 1989 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/50622 1989-01-01T00:00:00Z