did you need one law for care in the final days of life? This is the question posed by the medical community from the perspective of the profession’s code of ethics. This issue gives the title, in fact, to one of the colloquiums of the Good Medical Work (BQM) that the Collegiate Medical Organization (OMC) will disseminate from this Wednesday to bring professional ethics closer to the corridors of the hospital and the health center, as well as to medical colleges.
Juan José Rodríguez Sendín, family doctor and former president of the Cgcom, has been the professional chosen to answer this question, formulated as a result of the entry into force of the Euthanasia Law and the controversy created around the new legislation. As a starting point, he admits that “the fact of causing death is a terrible feeling for the doctor but so is the suffering of the patients.
When it comes to choosing, the doctor is “very clear”: “I want to choose”, so he understands that his patients can also count on that same right. However, when it comes to analyzing the law itself, this expert misses a broader regulation that would address the quality care at the end of life and not exclusively euthanasia. “Except for this issue and assisted suicide, which are included in the Penal Code, everything else has the code of ethics as a reference and this creates a lot of insecurity.”
In this sense, he considers that there are still some loose ends in the text that can generate a lack of “legal” protection to the medical professional. He considers that necessary aspects such as the “Therapeutic cruelty, treatment refusal or brain death”.
What do the BQM colloquiums consist of?
It is just one of the first three colloquiums that the WTO already has available on its website and of the eight that it has created from expert voices for “bring medical ethics and professional ethics closer to hospital corridors and to health centers, as well as to medical colleges”.
The usefulness of the code, the autonomy of the patient, the confidentiality, research and ethics, empathy in doctor-pacient relationship or gender violence will be other topics that will be addressed in these meetings published in the form of 15-20 minute audio-visual ‘pills’.
Its contents seek to go beyond the “technical field” and point to “humanization and professionalism”, to the “left ventricle of the life of a doctor”, as Tomás Cobo, president of the WTO, underlined. The idea was to create a space to discuss different aspects of ethics with experts and bring knowledge closer “in the most practical way to professionals“. “The topics are treated colloquially as if they were answered in a bar conversation”, pointed out Arcadi Gual, director of SEAFORMEC.
The bqm colloquia They represent the extension of the book created in 2014 on good medical practices, which hopes to see its sixth edition published next year and the vignettes created for this same purpose in 2021.
