Public health professionals have to deal with many dilemmas due to their varied, and sometimes conflicting, roles as government officials, health professionals, and advocates for human health and justice.
In this program of the November 21, 2002 Third Thursday Breakfast Broadcasts (T2B2) on Public Health Issues, Lawrence Gostin, Professor of Law; Professor of Public Health, the Johns Hopkins University; Director, Center for Law & the Public's Health, Georgetown University Law Center, discussed the challenges and dilemmas faced by public health professionals in two realms: public health and ethics. He also discussed the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, of which he is a primary author.
The program ascertains that ethics in public health is concerned not so much with the character of professionals as with the ethical dimensions of the public health enterprise itself. Here, the decision-making in creating and implementing public health policy is the key factor. This kind of applied ethics is situation or case oriented, seeking to understand morally appropriate decisions in concrete cases. It requires thought about the potential conflicts between civil liberties and property rights on the one hand and prevention and emergency preparedness on the other.
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