ExAms

eeepp! gulp...hhmmm...min min ehmm uhhmm... we are talking about exams here..in just a couple of hours i will be done with Philo.( Biomedical Ethics).

just to recap: we looking at Euthanasia, Resource Allocation, Research and ethics, and last but not least Genetic Engineering...blah blah blah

Euthanasia as you all know is all about death decision making. there are two sorts of euthanasia; namely passive and active where the former is legal and the latter illegal here in Canada thou looked closely the two have no technical difference. nonetheless we follow some formal ways to make decisions as to how to go about these methods. these include substituted judgement and best interest judgement: under the substituted judgement there are advanced directives a professional should follow according to Canadian health act.

Resource allocation, one of the Hot topics here close to home in BC, is the next thing we covered in this course. Here we are looking into balancing between demand and scarce resources. there are many ways to follow among which rationing, prioritizing and Qalys are involved. we looked into some approaches a number of philosophers suggested among which, rescue principle and the prudent insurer, I at least laughed about.( just a grin..hah) the reason why these principles may sound appealing and yet unrealistic is because they are hypothetical. and to be sure, we are living in world of differences. Ahh, a good transition towards the next topic that we did-- genetic engineering.

though we were told to study only definitions of key terms here, i took the liberty to go deeply and do a little more reading because i find it really interesting. So talking about the hypothetical principles by Dworkin's-- it would have been possible to ensure the prudent insurer principle had we lived in the world of Hexley. one of the remarkable writers of the 20th century( Brave New World). ahh i remember doing an essay on this book in Grade 12. anyway... in this topic we looked into the differences between genetic therapy, genetic enhancement and genetic testing. it helps when one draws the distinctions among classes.

finally we did a topic on research and the ethics behind it. the use of human subjects, the phases involved in validating a new therapy and distinctions, using placebos and double bind tests. though much can be said about this topic, i refrain from from writing more since i need to do a bit more reading on Declaration of Helsinki, Randomized clinical tirals and blah blah blah...( am sure i can do the reading before 4:00 Pm today ..just on time for my exam)

I can bet a funny post tomorrow night if he chooses to give us the topic for our essay : " discussions of the slippery-slope for active euthanasia" which i am ready for... ;)

and that is all i can say of my exam today: and let the count down being 3 hours and 15 minutes left!

H.M