In contemporary debates about the nature of bioethics there is a widespread view that bioethical decision making should involve certain knowledge of and respect for cultural diversity of persons to be affected. The aim of this article is to show that this view is untenable and misleading. It is argued that introducing the idea of respect for cultural diversity into bioethics encounters a series of conceptual and empirical constraints. While acknowledging that cultural diversity is something that decision makers in bioethical (...) contexts should try to understand and, when possible, respect, it is argued that this cultural turn ignores the typically normative role of bioethics and thus threatens to undermine its very foundations. (shrink)

The main goal of intensive care medicine is helping patients survive acute threats to their lives, while preserving and restoring life quality. Because of medical advancements, it is now possible to sustain life to an extent that would previously have been difficult to imagine. However, the goals of medicine are not to preserve organ function or physiological activity but to treat and improve the health of a person as a whole. When dealing with medical futilities, physicians and other members of (...) the care team should be aware of some ethical principles. Knowing these principles could make decision-making easier, especially in cases where legal guidelines are insufficient or lacking. Understanding of these principles can relieve the pressure that healthcare professionals feel when they have to deal with medical futility. Efforts should be made to promote an ethics of care, which means caring for patients even after further invasive treatment has been deemed to be futile. Treatments that improve patients’ comfort and minimize suffering of both patients and their families are equally as important as those aimed at saving patients’ lives. (shrink)

The issue of organ donation and of how the donor pool can or should be increased is one with significant practical, ethical and logistic implications. Here we comment on an article advocating a paradigm change in the so-called.