Document Detail


Medical ethics committees in Hungary.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  10115138     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Hungarian medical ethics committees were established at the end of the 1950s. They came into being on the Communist Party's initiative. They could hardly be called "interdisciplinary" since their membership was made up of high-ranking physicians and a few head nurses. Their main task was to counter the practice of "tipping." Medical ethics and "tipping" were practically synonymous. These committees did not confront or try to resolve ethical problems concerning such issues as patient rights, informed consent, refusal of treatment, human experimentation, abortion, etc. These committees - whether it is believable or not - belonged to the Physicians Health Workers Trade Union. They were under the guidance and supervision of this social organization. The public was excluded from their meetings, and the committees' duty was to follow the health laws which were supposed to have given excellent ethical guidance. Even in a textbook on medical ethics used at one of the medical universities, written by a psychiatrist, the health laws were presented and explained back and forth. Of the 88 pages only 23 dealt with morals in general and the Hippocratic tradition. The Hungarian National Health Service as well as its medical ethics committees are similar in many respects to the Soviet and Eastern European countries' health care system and ethics committees. Since radical changes have taken place in these so-called "former" communist countries, it can only be hoped that these committees will eventually develop into groups who will deal directly with the moral questions or medicine and health care.
Authors:
B Blasszauer
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Historical Article; Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  HEC forum : an interdisciplinary journal on hospitals' ethical and legal issues     Volume:  3     ISSN:  0956-2737     ISO Abbreviation:  HEC Forum     Publication Date:  1991  
Date Detail:
Created Date:  1992-01-17     Completed Date:  1992-01-17     Revised Date:  2004-11-18    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8917455     Medline TA:  HEC Forum     Country:  UNITED STATES    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  277-83     Citation Subset:  E; H    
Affiliation:
Institute of Social Sciences, Medical University of Pecs, Hungary.
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Communism
Ethics Committees / history*
Fraud / prevention & control
Government Regulation
History, 20th Century
Humans
Hungary
Labor Unions / standards
Professional Misconduct*
State Medicine / standards*

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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