Bioethics should be practiced in every sphere of life to develop ethical values of people to stop injustice, to remove all sorts of malpractices as well as widespread corruption from the society.
“Nowadays bioethics has gained immense importance in the world due to rapid advancement in science and technology, drastic change in macroeconomic planning and globalization,” General Secretary of Bangladesh Bioethics Society (BBS) Prof Shamima Parvin Lasker said in an exclusive interview with BSS.
Bioethics is the understanding of rights, responsibility, justices and moral interaction for living being, she said adding it includes medical ethics, environmental ethics and ethical, legal and social issues arising from biotechnology.
“Bioethics teaches how to balance between different benefits, risks and duties,” Prof Shamima said though bioethics has existed in every region throughout the ages but in the 1970s it emerged as a discipline of academic in the USA due to the increasing complexity of medical advances.
Referring to global perspective of bioethics practices, she said there are bioethics departments in over 60 academic medical centres in the USA.
Prof Shamima, also teacher of Department of Anatomy, City Dental College, said many hospitals in different developed countries are recruiting bioethics experts to guide on such issues like allocation of scarce resources, how to care terminally ill patients and dilemmas that doctors face everyday due to advancement of new technology.
“Over 95 percent US hospitals have ethics committees for helping physicians, nurses and families on bioethical issues on a case by case basis. Thus, today bioethics is not only a reasoned discourage but a matter of crisis management,” she added.
Prof Shamima observed that Bangladesh is a pluralistic society with a wonderful diversity of values and ethical ideals. It is also witnessing a rapid change due to technological advancement as well as impact of urbanizations, she said, adding bioethics practices will help to deal with these changed issues of society.
