Public Health Principlism

Public health ethics has grown out of the medical ethics movement and has remained in individualistic biomedical models. However, as public health is a different enterprise than medicine dealing with communities rather than individuals. The author develops public health principlism based on the idea of common citizenship in the community. When the four principles of public health ethics—solidarity, efficacy, integrity, and dignity—are in balance, a state of justice exists. The goal is to have programs that are the least destructive to communities and the least restrictive to people. These principles provide guidance in ethical reasoning when analyzing programs and interventions such as mandatory helmet laws, water fluoridation, and smallpox vaccination to improve the aggregate health of a community

Is Bioethics A Profession?

The development of an occupation into a profession is an historical process that concerns power, jurisdiction, social contracts, and economic interests. Sociological theories of professionalization view these developments through perspectives of superior work, pay for performance, historical processes, jurisdictional disputes, struggles of social and economic power, and virtues. This essay explores these theories and examines the field of bioethics through each of these lenses looking at such issues amateur versus professional, education, professional organizations, specialized knowledge, code of ethics, jurisdiction, work sites, work focus, research, socialization, professional autonomy, licensure, legislation, and prestige. Bioethics is seen as falling in the middle of Goode’s “profession continuum.” While bioethics has adopted some of the necessary characteristics of a profession, having those elements is not a sufficient condition to being a profession. In the end, professionalization is undesirable for the field