Medical care, which should be more faithful to human rights and dignity of a patient.
Prof. Rihito Kimura
Japanese | English
In the first place, I'd like to send the following message I continue to assert at Universities in every part of the world, to you who will become leaders of medical care in the 21st century.
|
You should;
1. study your own history and culture correctly and critically. 2. learn at least two foreign languages of the different cultures besides English. 3. experience the volunteer activities of education, welfare, medical care, nursing, and the like, in your own country or foreign ones, particularly in developing countries. 4. cultivate international outlook on "the sense of human rights" and make full use of the one in your own professional field. |
The absolute power on the part of the medical care's provider continued to control patients for a long time in various countries as well as japan, furthermore, it was left to pretend to take medical care "for patients", which was given hardly any 'informed consent' as a matter of course.
But, Times have greatly changed. Medical care, which have respect for human rights and dignity, is firmly established internationally, not to mention western advanced countries. The first thing you have to do, what I ask of you who will become leaders of medical care in the 21st century, is that you have a firm belief and determination to respect for human rights and dignity of a patient.
Patients have rights to know truth of the information about their own health, and the substance of a treatment as a measure devised to deal with that. Of course, the procedure becoming to Japan to inform a patient, and its timing, e.t.c. would exist in Japan. But, this must not result in an infringement of a patient's right to know the truth.
Just now, the whole world extremely changes in society, economy, and policy, begin to take on a communal society. Under the circumstances, only insistence on sense of values and logic like that of Japan, and justification of its peculiarity must result in international isolation.
In various fields in which a lively inter-cultural movement, such as medical studies, we should originate new values whose central points are human rights and dignity toward a new world in the future, for Japan's large contribution to the world as a member of the community. The conventional medical ethics, based on the authoritarian conception that a medical professional take the lead, undergo a complete change into the Bioethics, which have respect for the autonomy that "a patient take the lead".
I am convinced that putting the contents of the above-mentioned remarks I sent in the first place into practice, such a great change into the new conception would take place in Japan.
please send your E-mail toTranslated into English by Naoto Kawahara (Graduate School)...