Omur Sayligil

By Omur Elcioglu and Seyyare Duman

Part of the book: Global Bioethics

By Omur Sayligil

Traditional medicine (TM) as well as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practices have been used more frequently; since modern medicine has gravitated toward a dehumanistic situation due to the extensive workload of healthcare professionals and thus lack of time given to each patient and mistrust of patients due to some side effects of latest treatment options, in addition to TM and CAM practices having been more affordable, accessible, most often noninvasive, and seen as a hope during terminal periods of some diseases. In order to ensure TM and CAM complying with the standards as other healthcare services, it is necessary to address and evaluate scientific and ethical issues for these clinical researches as well. On the other hand, so far, the ethical side of TM and CAM has not been discussed in detail. Issues such as misleading information, informed consent, publications, patient-physician relationship, and confidentiality should be discussed within the framework of ethics. Ethical issues on CAM and TM research can be sorted as patient’s autonomy and consent, principle of justice, patient-physician relationship, use of public resources, and health insurances. This chapter aims at evaluating CAM and TM research according to fundamental ethics principles, as well as discussing legislations on CAM and TM research in Turkey.

Part of the book: Bioethics in Medicine and Society

By Mesut Güvenbaş and Omur Sayligil

Organ transplantation is an issue that concerns two people (donor and recipient) at the same time in terms of the right to life, which is the most basic human right. The direct utility arising from organ transplantation involves the patient to whom the organ is transplanted, and the indirect utility relates to the donor. Today, the decision to obtain an organ from a living donor is based on the idea of doing something good by those who sacrifice themselves for their relatives. The person who donates an organ treats their body as an instrument and uses their willpower on it. If the statement “I will care about the health of others” is accepted as a universal principle, it will be very important to establish a balance between the duty of caring for the health of others and protecting one’s own health. If we want to introduce a new approach to be adopted in the assessment of living donors in society, we must look at the real situation in terms of utility, altruism, and volunteering. This Chapter thus evaluates organ transplantation from living donors in terms of utility, altruism, and volunteering.

Part of the book: Organ Donation and Transplantation