Bioethics

　The development of life science and medical care have raised various kinds of social issues and moral dilemma. Issues relating to advanced medical technologies, end-of-life care, biomedical researches, and so on are value-laden, which require examination from both theorical and practical aspects. In the department of bioethics, we study these ethical issues from a multi-disciplinary perspective including medicine, philosophy/applied ethics, pharmacy, nursing and social science. In addition, through postgraduate research, we train medical personnels with the ability to tackle moral problems in their professional practices. Furthermore, through collaborative research both domestically and internationally, we aim to examine and purpose solutions to the unique issues in Japan.
Our ongoing research themes are as follows:
1. Ethical reasoning for medical professionals
2. The concept of best interest and surrogate decision-making
3. Legal policies for end-of-life care and the concept of good death in east Asia
4. Implement and ethical problems of organ transplant
5. Informed consent of acoustic handicapped patients
6. Ethical decision making in palliative care
7. Secondary use of patient specimens and personal information for future research