Bioethics and its offspring Health-care Ethics have a variety ofuses and obligations among which and perhaps most importantly istheir social obligation. This paper raises questions as toBioethics fulfilling the necessary criteria for a profession,suggests that it can serve as a link between individual andcommunal problems, discusses the task of health-care ethics as well as ways of teaching it, lists some of the obligationsof health-care ethics professionals and discusses the dangers to and failings of these health-care professionals today. Itconcludes that we (...) are at a crossroads in which we must choosebetween our own personal security and comfort and fulfilling our social role. (shrink)

The history in which bioethics developed is well reviewed in a recent book written by Al Jonsen. This superb little volume gives a concise—even if a necessarily rather subjective—account of the development of the field. A more objective history of the contemporary development of the field cannot be expected from those who helped craft it and awaits historians of the future. What I have been asked to do here is to supply my own personal impressions of the development of this (...) field as I have experienced it. What I have been asked to do here is to supply my own personal impressions of the development of this field as I have experienced it. (shrink)