La bioética y de los comités hospitalarios de ética: una introducción

the birth of bioethics as a discipline can be set approximately five decades ago. the significant scientific progress achieved by biological and medical sciences, along with the emergence of innovative biotechnology, brought to light the need to set criteria for the morally complex decisions that emerged from the health care and medical fields. government agencies and health centers, faced with this reality, began to understand the importance of the task of implementing formal mechanisms to address and analyze ethical issues arising from these dynamic and ever changing developments in the health care field. the result was the establishment of bioethics committees, which are intended to encourage dialogue and debate on issues related to ethics of health care. these committees are interdisciplinary groups in which experts from different professions (doctors, nurses, psychologists, philosophers, lawyers and others) discuss various bioethical issues in order to reach an agreement with the purpose of protecting patient′s rights. this paper, which has an introductory character, presents a brief introduction to the emergence and development of bioethics as a discipline and explains the functions and composition of hospital ethics committees.