BIOMEDICAL ETHICS AND THE BIOMEDICAL-ENGINEER - A REVIEW

Biomedical engineering is responsible for many of the dramatic advance s in modern medicine. This has resulted in improved medical care and b etter quality of life for patients. However, biomedical technology has also contributed to new ethical dilemmas and has challenged some of o ur moral values. Bioengineers often lack adequate training in facing t hese moral and ethical problems. These include conflicts of interest, allocation of scarce resources, research misconduct, animal experiment ation, and clinical trials for new medical devices. This paper is a co mpilation of our previous published papers on these topics, and it sum marizes many complex ethical issues that a bioengineer may face during his or her research career or professional practice. The need for eth ics training in the education of a bioengineering student is emphasize d. We also advocate the adoption of a code of ethics for bioengineers.