Sukran Sevimli

Aim: The aim of this study is to reveal the convergence of public health ethics, institutional, collective, and individual ethics obligation during the COVID-19 pandemic and give some explanations with online media reports. Method: The study method is qualitative content analysis; this method was chosen as it would suit best the purpose of the study. The Turkish Medical Association, Turkish Public Health Association, and online newspaper articles and videos have been scanned using keywords. After that, related online reports and interviews have been classified and analyzed according to the context in between May 22, 2020 and November 16, 2020. No official ethical permission was obtained as the study was conducted through open access internet news sites. Results: The COVID-19 scientific committee and the Ministry of Health has suggested a new way of normal life called controlled social life for all places in Turkey. In the frame of these recommendations, with the Google research engine, many articles of online media including some announcements of medical and legal associations, interviews, and calls made by the authorities were selected and analyzed. These articles and interviews containing each problem and pieces of information provided for the common understandings of the society were selected and evaluated at three topics individual, collective and state and institutional responsibility and obligations. Conclusion: Although the warnings of associations, health authorities, and scientists are mostly about personal-civil responsibility, some occurring practices have caused violations. In addition, the level of education, perception capacity, and habits that include existing social-cultural and religious rituals have prevented people from adapting to this new style of life, in other words, controlled social life. Therefore, besides the original national culture and customs, universal ethical responsibilities and obligations should teach starting from primary school and should consist of whole life understanding as a higher perspective.

Purpose: The objective of this study is to determine the importance of supplementary medical ethics course for resident physicians. In this study, we assessed the current state of their knowledge of medical ethics and aimed to improve and deepen their understanding of clinical scenarios to increase their awareness of the link between the practice of medicine and ethical issues. Methods: The course was held for groups of 10-12 people for 3 days a week for a total of 6 hours. Tests given prior to and following completion of the course were used to assess the effectiveness of a medical ethics training course in which 120 resident physicians completed. The evaluation was made on the basis of the same pre-and post-tests (14 scenarios) and direct observation of participants. Result and Discussion: The average age was 28.23 ± 4.08 and 25% were female and 75% were male. Of the participants, 68.3% were training to be internists, 24.2% were training to be surgeons, and 7.5% were training in laboratory medicine. There was a significant statistical difference between the mean total scores of both tests (p=0.00). After completing the course, residents took into account the medical ethical principles while discussing ethical decisions. Conclusion: After finishing the course, participants defended their responses in regard to issues of medical ethics more carefully and articulated their thoughts more clearly. Our experience demonstrated that the trainees benefited from a structured curriculum in medical ethics. We believe that the development and implementation of our course may serve as a case study for training resident physicians in medical ethics.

This descriptive study explores the views of resident physicians working in intensive care units (ICUs) concerning deceased organ donation and examines the various ethical issues surrounding organ donation encountered by residents. This was a qualitative, descriptive study utilizing solo interviews with participants together with focus group discussions. The participants' experiences and views were elicited via interviews and focus group discussions covering the following topics: ethical thoughts about deceased organ donation, barriers that impede or prevent organ donation, its effect on the next of kin, and its relationship with futile treatment. The discussions were reviewed using qualitative content analysis. The residents commented that deceased organ donation is a complex and stressful process for the family of the potential donor as well as the transplant team, and still lacks wide acceptance in Turkish society. The opt-in system requires informed consent, thus creating a major barrier for both the patient’s family and the ICU team to overcome. The participants stated that new legal, ethical, and medical arrangements are needed to increase organ donation rates in Turkey. In order to increase rates of deceased organ donation and reduce cases of futile treatment, improved communication between the ICU, transplant team, and patient relatives is critical to ensure that ethical issues are properly managed. On a societal level, the subject of deceased organ donation needs to receive greater attention from public health authorities to increase public awareness. Residents can make valuable contributions to the deceased organ donation process as physicians and as psychosocial support for patients and their families.

The objective of this article is to shed light on some challenging questions regarding public health and medical ethics that the Turkish healthcare system has recently been forced to confront. In recent years, terrorists in eastern Turkey have launched increasingly destructive attacks, including numerous attempts to undermine the social order by targeting not only government agencies but also the healthcare system. In this study, 54 terrorist incidents specifically targeting the Turkish healthcare system and healthcare professionals were analyzed and divided into 6 categories according to the type of attack. Each category was evaluated in terms of the relevant ethical issues, with regard to both public health and medical ethics. This study shows that terrorist activity may lead to numerous breaches of public health and clinical ethics rules. Therefore, healthcare policy must involve special precautions to minimize breaches of public health and medical ethics in the face of terrorist attacks.