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A s i a n B i o e t h i c s R e v i e w J u n e 2 0 0 9 Vo l u m e 1 , I s s u e 2 174 Bioethics and Biopolitics: Beijing Lectures by a European Scholar By Hans-Martin Sass Xian, China: Fourth Military Medical University Press, 2006 430 pp. ISBN 978-7-81086-296-7. CNY32.00 Is bioethics a culture-specific discipline or a universal common morality? Sass strongly holds that bioethics and medical ethics are rooted in universal and common moral intuitions, attitudes and teachings, which are foundational in most traditions and cultures, but have specific cultural and historic characteristics. Sass also believes that healthcare is an interactive enterprise between experts and lay people, and in many areas of health more than two stakeholders are involved; thus medical ethics is not just focused on physicians. The 10 Beijing lectures were originally given in English at Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) and then translated into Chinese by young scholars from PUMC: this book contains both the Chinese and English versions. In chapter 1, “Chinese Bioethics in the Age of Globalization”, Sass discusses various sets of principles in medical ethics, tracing them from Sun Simiao, Confucius , Aristotle, Hippocrates to contemporary authors, such as TL Beauchamp, R Qiu, RR Kishore, and MC Tai. He is quite critical of modern sets of principles such as the influential “autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice” model, which, he holds, lacks the traditional principles, expertise and compassion so central in all traditions of physician ethics in both West and East. Of major concern to Sass is that modern medical ethics primarily focuses on physician’s ethics rather than on the model of interactive attitudes and virtues of experts and lay persons, physicians and patients, as used by both the early Greek philosopher and doctor, Hippocrates, in the West and Confucian doctor, Gong Tingxian, in the 10th century. Sass is particularly impressed by Gong Tingxian’s interactive 10 rules for both the physician patient and formulates what he calls “8 interactive golden rules for stakeholders in health care” for the 21st century, 8 for the expert and 8 for the lay person. His first 2 rules for the lay person are: “Find truly educated and trustworthy health experts” and “Develop competence and responsibility in health risk management”. He advocates the health professional B O O K R E V I E W 174–176 Asian Bioethics Review June 2009 Volume 1, Issue 2 175 to “Treat your patient as a person, not just his or her symptoms” and “Assist your patient in developing health risk competence”. Healthcare and healthcare ethics for Sass is a partnership enterprise: The ethics of health care is an ethics of partnership between an expert and a lay person, between a provider and a receiver. For the lay person, I see the maxims of self-determination (autonomy) and compliance in a balanced and often tense interaction, also the goals of quality of life and length of life in as far as certain forms of enjoying life might not be healthy nor contribute to a long life. On the side of the physician, I see the respect for the autonomy of the patient and the professional obligation to request compliance in need to be balanced in a process of prudent and honest decision making, also the traditional tension between doing the patient good without harm as a side-effect of treatment or medication. No stakeholder can resolve the tensions and probable imbalances between principles, maxims and goals alone, they have to interact on the basis of trust, of communication-in-trust and cooperation-in-trust, in caring for health as in all other endeavors when experts and lay customers have to cooperate and to communicate goals, means, and procedures. (8f; 207) It would be worthwhile to include this aspect of partnership and cooperation and the important role of the lay person in the care of health in future biomedical teaching. Sass’ lectures make use of classical Western and Eastern professional and cultural positions, thus demonstrating the common foundations of medical ethics as based on competence, compassion and an interactive partnership...

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