Biomedical subjects

B Feuillet-Le Mintier

Publications and source records attributed to B Feuillet-Le Mintier.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2002

[Reflections on the Perruche judgment].

The Perruche case has been widely talked about. By conceding the responsibility of a doctor who did not detect that a pregnant woman had rubella, the plenary meeting of France's highest court of appeal acknowledged a causal link between a doctor's mistake (diagnostic error) and a child's disability. Not only is this outcome open to criticism from a legal point of view, as the doctor is not responsible for a disability linked to the mother's rubella, but it is also questionable on an ethical basis. The doctor's error did not cause the disability of the child but only the birth of this disabled child (if the mother had been aware of her state, she probably would have terminated her pregnancy). This judicial decision therefore implies that the birth of a disabled child can constitute a prejudice. Even if the judges' intention was to compensate the disabled child and this was reaffirmed in recent decisions, such judicial precedents deserve to be contested.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Biotechnology and human rights.

Biotechnology permits our world to progress. It's a tool to better apprehend the human being, but as well to let him go ahead. Applied to the living, biotechnologies present the same finality. But since their matter concerns effectively the living, they are the sources of specific dangers and particularly of that one to use the improvements obtained on the human to modify the human species. The right of the persons has to find its place to avoid that the fundamental rights of the human personality shall undergo harm. This mission assigned to the right of the persons is as so much invaluable that the economical stakes are particularly important in the domain of the biotechnologies.

Biotechnology↗

PubMed2000

Ethics education in medical schools: the role of jurists.

Ethical thinking has always existed in the area of medicine. The oldest law case has known human experiment difficulties, but this comes from the doctor. The power of the practitioner relies on the lack of medical knowledge of the patient and often in practice, on the lack of information for the patient. The doctor has ethical difficulties when he considers the patient and the solution, in fact is dependent on his conscience. With the various medical discoveries, the doctor can create life (assisted procreation), manipulate life (gene therapy) and suppress life (abortion, suppression of frozen embroyos). These discoveries have increased the necessity for ethical reflection. Ethics committees have been created at local level (as part of special establishments or departments) rather than at national and international levels. The scope of the stakes (the development of the human race) give to this ethical reflection a multidisciplinary approach. There is a general tendency for the influence of law in these fields. Therefore, the jurist has a more and more important place on these ethics committees. Actually, the interaction from ethics to law is frequent. Also during legal proceedings, a jurist has and will have more and more need of a medical assessor. So, cooperation is necessary between doctors and jurists. The teaching of ethics in medical schools by the jurist can be important because it will recall the humanist mission of the doctor. The jurist must be able to increase the medical professions' awareness of essential notions such as respect for the fundamental rights of the human being.

Curriculum↗