Bioethics in Physiotherapy and Nursing Schools’ Programs

Preliminary communication

Abstract

The interest in ethical and bioethical topics in society is always present. However, the question arises as to how are ethical and bioethical problems of broad spectrum presented to the public, starting from issues related to health, medicine, technology, genetics, to issues about economy and politics. If ethicalbioethical issues will be addressed in different fields of social life without systematic methodological preparation, we could easily be trapped in ethics and bioethics speeches, which would be presented in a way that suits somebody at a certain point. When talking about educational institutions like College or Polytechnic with medical and health-related study programs, it would certainly be useful to make an analysis about the ethical-bioethical topics and subjects they are offering to students. Recently, there is a high interest of high school graduates in enrolling to professional study programs like Physiotherapy and Nursing. Bioethics is an obligatory subject within the framework of those study programs. However, lecturers of different profiles are chair professors of Bioethics at the aforementioned institutions, starting from physicians, through philosophers, theologians, sociologists, and lawyers. Of course, that is possible because a scientist can deal with various scientific challenges through his career, but it would certainly be important to at least equate syllabi, as well as plans and programs of Bioethics in Physiotherapy and Nursing study program. It is important to note that in Physiotherapy programs, besides subjects from the field of bio-medicine, a significant part of the program is based on the science of movement and especially therapeutic exercises, which point out the need to include the field of kinesiology into the Bioethics plan and program.