Dr Ruth Macklin, international editorial advisory board member of the IJME, spoke at two meetings organised by the Forum for Medical Ethics Society (FMES) during her visit to Mumbai. At the department of medicine, she spoke on ethics of transplants and of intensive care. At the department of clinical pharmacology, BYL Nair Hospital, she spoke to ethics committee members of various hospitals on problems encountered during ethical review of research. Both presentations were followed by question-answer sessions.
Members of FMES participated in a workshop on ‘Reproductive health: integrating medicine, ethics and the law’, organised by IPAS in coordination with the Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes.
Members of FMES coordinated a five-day course in ethics in health research, for the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, Sree Chitra Tirunal Insitute of Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram. This was in collaboration with the Fogarty Project of the University of California, San Francisco, USA. The course will be offered annually at the institute.
The annual general body meeting of FMES was held on September 5, 2004 at the Jaslok Hospital. New members to the FMES were welcomed. The audited accounts for the previous financial year were passed. Details were presented of the journal’s subscription and financial status. Reports were given on activities relating to the Human Organs Transplantation Act, the Maharashtra Medical Council and other campaigns.
It was resolved that the managing committee would be empowered to take action to explore the possibility of affiliations with other organisations to undertake further collaborative activities related to health ethics in Mumbai and elsewhere. Some suggested activities were: offering independent ethics review for research proposals, clinical ethics consultations, national conferences on ethics, a study circle and investigation of violations of human rights.