著者

太田 富雄

出版者

日本医学哲学・倫理学会

雑誌

医学哲学 医学倫理 (ISSN:02896427)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.7, pp.102-112, 1989-07-31 (Released:2018-02-01)

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Once people said that medicine was the art of ethics. However, it is now impossible for a practitioner to treat a patient in such a manner. Revolutionary advances in medicine have placed the problem of ethical attitude in the field of practice. Considering these points, it has been asked why the statements about the right to the choice of treatments have been proposed. Of course, it is true even now that patients can not be satisfied without the devotion of medical teams. However, it is really in the field of the most advanced medical technique that ethical problem should be resolved. Here we have discussed the subject of organ transplantation in relation to the brain-dead and persistently vegetative patients, with whom we neurosurgeons are so familiar. In fact, organ transplantation as a medical practice must be one of the major subjects of philosophy, not only as an ethical problem, but also since it involves the existence of human being in the 21th century. Since human life is so transitory, we should search for harmony by identifying ourselves with the universe. Brain-dead and persistently vegetative patients should not be recognized as dead, but respected as among the poorest human beings. Now it is essential, in order to establish the harmony of the universe, that we create a God who is more appropriate in the modern age.