A KOREAN PERSPECTIVE ON DEVELOPING A GLOBAL POLICY FOR ADVANCE DIRECTIVES

Despite the wide and daunting array of cross-cultural obstacles that the formulation of a global policy on advance directives will clearly pose, the need is equally evident. Specifically, the expansion of medical services driven by medical tourism, just to name one important example, makes this issu...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Kim, Soyoon (Author) ; Hahm, Ki-Hyun (Author) ; Park, Hyoung Wook (Author) ; Kang, Hyun Hee (Author) ; Sohn, Myongsei (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2010
In: Bioethics
Year: 2010, Volume: 24, Issue: 3, Pages: 113-117
Further subjects:B global policy
B Advance Directives
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Despite the wide and daunting array of cross-cultural obstacles that the formulation of a global policy on advance directives will clearly pose, the need is equally evident. Specifically, the expansion of medical services driven by medical tourism, just to name one important example, makes this issue urgently relevant. While ensuring consistency across national borders, a global policy will have the additional and perhaps even more important effect of increasing the use of advance directives in clinical settings and enhancing their effectiveness within each country, regardless of where that country's state of the law currently stands. One cross-cultural issue that may represent a major obstacle in formulating, let alone applying, a global policy is whether patient autonomy as the underlying principle for the use of advance directives is a universal norm or a construct of western traditions that must be reconciled with alternative value systems that may place lesser significance on individual choice. A global policy, at a minimum, must emphasize respect for patient autonomy, provision of medical information, limits to the obligations for physicians, and portability. And though the development of a global policy will be no easy task, active engagement in close collaboration with the World Health Organization can make it possible.
ISSN:1467-8519
Contains:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2009.01787.x