A modern lecture on bioethics, adapted to the Polish specificity. The author defines bioethics as the ethics of health care systems in democratic societies. He cites both classical examples giving rise to bioethics and case studies from domestic medical practice, which makes the work - without losing the qualities of a textbook for students of medicine, biology, philosophy and law - also an interesting read for doctors, biologists, philosophers and lawyers, as well as a wide range of readers interested in the moral side of practising medicine. For the first time in the Polish literature on the subject, the cultural, social, legal and economic realities of Poland that influence the shape of our country's health policy have been taken into account to such an extensive extent. Volume 1 presents: - the emergence of bioethics and its relationship to medical ethics and the Hippocratic tradition in medicine; - the ways in which bioethics is practised; - the principle of respecting the autonomy of the patient as a person; - the issues of medical confidentiality, coercion in medicine and patient rights; - the moral problems of contraception, artificial insemination, pre-birth diagnosis and abortion; - the ethical principles of palliative/hospice care and the discussion related to euthanasia and medically assisted suicide. Kazimierz Szewczyk endows us with a comprehensive compendium that will become an indispensable item in the library of Polish readers who, whether for professional or simply life reasons, are interested in this subject; it is a work that everyone should not only read thoroughly once, but in fact keep constantly at hand.
Prof. Włodzimierz Galewicz, President of the Polish Bioethics Society