Medical Ethics
In Our Time16 Joulu 1999

Medical Ethics

Melvyn Bragg examines the technological advances and ethics of modern medicine. On an average working day about three quarters of a million of us go to the doctor’s. About a hundred thousand are visited by nurses and other health professionals. Then there are the three hundred thousand that go to the dentist. Health is a central preoccupation. It is also big business, saving life, lengthening life and even promising a stab at eternal life. Yet while some technology is Space Age, the morality is often not far away from the Stone Age. Who decides who lives or dies? Insurance firms, for instance, want genetic information - should they have it? Stem cell research - hailed by many as an extraordinary advance - now runs into conflict with those who do not want the human embryo to be, as they see it, abused. In the 16th century Francis Bacon told us in his Advancement of Learning “Medicine is a science which hath been more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced: the labour having been, in my judgement, rather in a circle than in a progression”. Well, after a century that has brought us penicillin, the discovery of DNA, heart transplants and key-hole surgery, have we finally escaped the loop? Or does our ethical application of what we can technologically achieve mean we are marching in Bacon’s circle still? With Barry Jackson, consultant surgeon and President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; Professor Sheila McLean, Director of the Institute of Law and Ethics in Medicine, Glasgow University.

Jaksot(1082)

Melvyn Bragg meets Misha Glenny

Melvyn Bragg meets Misha Glenny

Before Misha Glenny's first edition on 15th January, BBC Radio 4's flagship news programme Today has brought Melvyn Bragg and Misha Glenny together so they can share their ideas about In Our Time's su...

22 Tammi 16min

Civility

Civility

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that Civility, in one of its meanings, is among the most valuable social virtues: the skill to discuss topics that really matter to you, with someone who disag...

31 Heinä 202551min

Dragons

Dragons

Melvyn Bragg and guests explore dragons, literally and symbolically potent creatures that have appeared in many different guises in countries and cultures around the world. Sometimes compared to snake...

24 Heinä 202546min

Barbour's 'Brus'

Barbour's 'Brus'

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Barbour's epic poem The Brus, or Bruce, which he wrote c1375. The Brus is the earliest surviving poem in Older Scots and the only source of many of the stories of ...

17 Heinä 202549min

The Evolution of Lungs

The Evolution of Lungs

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution of lungs and of the first breaths, which can be traced back 400 million years to when animal life spread from rock pools and swamps onto land, as some fis...

10 Heinä 202548min

The Vienna Secession

The Vienna Secession

In 1897, Gustav Klimt led a group of radical artists to break free from the cultural establishment of Vienna and found a movement that became known as the Vienna Secession. In the vibrant atmosphere o...

3 Heinä 202554min

Hypnosis

Hypnosis

Ever since Franz Anton Mesmer induced trance-like states in his Parisian subjects in the late eighteenth century, dressed in long purple robes, hypnosis has been associated with performance, power and...

26 Kesä 202545min

Paul von Hindenburg

Paul von Hindenburg

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and role of one of the most significant figures in early 20th Century German history. Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) had been famous since 1914 as the victori...

19 Kesä 202552min

Suosittua kategoriassa Historia

olipa-kerran-otsikko
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
mayday-fi
huijarit
mystista
rss-ikiuni
tsunami
konginkangas
totuus-vai-salaliitto
rouva-diktaattori
rss-kirkon-ihmeellisimmat-tarinat
rss-i-dont-like-mondays-2
rss-sattuu-sita-suomessakin
maailmanpuu
historiaa-suomeksi
sotaa-ja-historiaa-podi
apinan-vuosi
rss-peter-peter