Organ donation, retrieval and allocation: allocationHow many organs should one patient receive? the ethics of transplantation in the medical school
Section snippets
Methods
Since the academic year 2000 to 2001, the discussion on ethical problems was implemented in the nephrology course (fourth year of the Medical School of Torino, Italy; overall 6 years). In this setting the nephrology course consists of 14 hours of frontal teaching, 10 hours per student of small-group lessons, and in a wide range of optional courses, seminars, and lessons. In the academic year 2002 to 2003, a case entitled “Retransplantation of Multiple Organs,” translated from Progress in
Results
All students (104 students) returned the questionnaires following the lessons; all questionnaires were at least in part compiled. In the absence of competition for allocation, retransplantation was approved by 76.2%, considered as unacceptable by 1%, while 22.9% of the students gave uncertain—blank answers. The opinions changed when, in the following question, the panorama was modified from the decision in a single case to the competition within a waiting list of 10 patients: in this scenario
Discussion
The present study, gathering opinions of future physicians on a complex ethical issue of transplantation medicine may be seen as a prototype of the ethical conflict between the deontological and the utilitaristic approaches to a situation of limited resources.5, 6, 7 Several comments may be made: the first one regards the interest of the medical school students on this subject. All questionnaires were returned, at least in part compiled. On the other hand, the high prevalence of uncertainties
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