Thirty Years of the Journal of the Croatian Catholic Medical Society and Its Approach to Scientific and Technical Progress, Biomedicine and Ethics in Medicine

Abstract

This paper analyses 61 articles in the Journal of the Croatian Catholic Medical Society, published between 1991and 2021. As predictors the author used the following terms: scientific and technical progress, biomedicine and ethics in medicine. Man’s structural, conceptual and value transformations, as well as those of society, have always been stimulated by modern technical and economic development. Rational assessment of resources and the coordination of technological progress with the humane and ethical aspects of medical practice becomes imperative, which in turn presupposes a high level of the researchers’ professional responsibility. The research framework should be restricted to humane values and scientific correctness. The moral progress of society does not always go hand in hand with scientific and technical progress. Business efficiency and profit must not be the only social relations model. A new interdisciplinary ethics, namely bioethics — which responds to the challenges of technology and economics accompanying contemporary multiculturalism and worldview pluralism –endeavours to integrate technical and natural sciences with humanistic disciplines and insists (at least) on a minimum of generally acceptable ethics and a value system. Agreement is required on the greatest value for each person: is it life or something other than life? Social norms must not destroy the autonomy of the individual, but neither must they hinder prosperity and quality coexistence in society. Through professional education, ethics commissions and professional societies, we should strive to offer concrete and applicable ethical principles of action.