Biomedical subjects

Andrej Michalsen

Publications and source records attributed to Andrej Michalsen.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

"Euthanasia": A confusing term, abused under the Nazi regime and misused in present end-of-life debate.

BACKGROUND: Legal provisions in The Netherlands and Belgium currently allow physicians to actively end a patient's life at his or her request under certain conditions. The term that is used for this is "euthanasia." DISCUSSION: The same term, "euthanasia," was used in Germany during the Nazi regime for a program of cleansing the "German nation" in which untold thousands of persons were denied human empathy or medical care and were thereby condemned to death. The medical profession played a leading role in the planning, administration, and supervision of this "euthanasia" program, with a large proportion of German physicians proactively shirking all moral responsibility and ultimately paving the way for the Holocaust. CONCLUSION: The term "euthanasia" was so abused during the Nazi regime as a camouflage word for murder of selected subpopulations with the willing participation of physicians, we believe that, regardless of the benevolent goals of current euthanasia practices, for historical reasons the term "euthanasia" must not be used with regards to current end-of-life care.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed2003

Risk assessment and perception.

Injury prevention efforts often focus on reducing the risk of potentially dangerous activities, facilities or equipment, such as diving, swimming pools or flotation devices. This paper aims to clarify the concepts of risk assessment and risk perception. Statistically, risk denotes the probability of an untoward event, often expressed in terms of potential financial loss. Subjectively, though, risk denotes an individual's perception of the likelihood and the seriousness of an undesirable event. Individual perception appears to be strongly influenced by personal traits and socio-cultural parameters. Risk assessment helps to form the basis for public health interventions. The implementation and effectiveness of these are influenced by individual risk perception. Therefore, preventive efforts need to incorporate and hopefully influence the determinants of risk perception among the target populations. Considering drowning, both hazard and incidence of submersion injuries are underestimated, whereas treatment options are usually overestimated. Consequently, individual risk alertness needs to be improved--drowning remains a ubiquitous risk.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Priorities for child safety in the European Union: agenda for action.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: Children have a right to safety, but this is still not optimally implemented throughout Europe. Furthermore, no joint commitment to change has been undertaken by the European Parliament, European Commission, or collectively by the EU Member States. This paper summarizes a White Book presented to governments entitled 'Priorities for Child Safety in the European Union,' requesting concerted action. METHODS: The report is based on statistics provided by the World Health Organization as well as by research centers in the European Union Member States. Original research was contracted to the Mori Social Research Institute in 2001 in order to obtain an update on parents' and leading government officials' views on child safety. RESULTS: The leading causes of child injury deaths in the EU (road accidents, 48%, other unintentional 16%, intentional 13%, drowning 11%, fires 5%, falls 5%, and poisoning 2%) are the same in all Member States, but it is the distribution of injuries within each category that determines the unique profile of each. Adopting a number of best practices that have been identified for each injury area can reduce these injury deaths. Survey results show that the parents of children in Europe are concerned regarding child injuries, while government officials are still not making strong commitments to advance safety for children. A review of EU standards and legislation related to child safety shows that these are still incomplete and require changes. CONCLUSIONS: A joint commitment to reduce child accidental injury deaths in the EU is advocated, with a clear set of recommendations to act upon.

Accidents↗